Interesting Problems in a Seiler upright

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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Today I went out to service a Seiler model 131(top of the line with 
magnetically assisted action) that is around 3 years old.  The owner 
complained of dampers not working.

When I arrived at his home, I found that the piano was so far out of 
regulation that I felt obliged to look for structural damage in the 
instrument.  I have never seen a piano so far out of whack.  There was no 
cracked plate, no warped keybed(it has a metal frame under the keyboard), 
nothing out of place, no signs of anything broken.  The hammers were between 
1/4 and 1/2 inch off the rail, and most of them blocked against the strings 
when played with a moderate to hard blow.  I thought of trying to raise the 
action bracket bolts(the ones they rest on on the keybed) to raise the entire 
action up a small amount, but they were as high as they could go without 
bending the nose bolts upward.

I figured it was a humidity problem that had caused some swelling.  That's a 
helluva a lot of swelling, though.  I ended up having to turn the capstans 
down more than one complete turn, then re-regulate the let-off and the back 
checks.  It came out fine, but I am wondering why  this happened.  According 
to the lady of the house, it went from good to unplayable in about a month.  
It was almost as if someone had given a toddler some tools and told him to go 
play with the action.  

Anybody ever seen anything like this in a really high quality instrument?

Dave Stahl

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