The Hamilton Manualo (also found on Ellington, Howard, Modello, Monarch, St. Genevieve brands) can sometimes be trouble getting back in because the pneumatics are upside down from most players. If they are particularly loose and floppy, the pneumatics will collapse once the stack is removed from the piano. With nothing to hold them open they may want to close. If you have someone push the soft rail all the way up to the strings, it will lift the wippens up enough to get the pneumatic fingers under the metal activation brackets. If that does not move enough, you can use a stick or straightedge just behind the sharps and push down ALL the keys as you put the stack back in. When the stack is in place, the fingers should center on the metal brackets and there should be no lost motion as the pneumatic starts to collapse. If there is lost motion the metal may be bent with a spoon bender tool. When I reassemble these stacks I glue on the pneumatics so that the fingers line up with the metal brackets. Some techs have not discovered this and their pneumatic fingers will not line up at all. Each pneumatic should lift the wippen to the same point that the keydip allows (If the keydip is correct) D.L. Bullock St. Louis www.thepianoworld.com <http://www.thepianoworld.com> Piano World 2732 Cherokee Saint Louis MO 63118 314-772-6676 -----Original Message----- From: Cy Shuster [mailto:741662027@theshusters.org] Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 1:56 AM To: Pianotech Subject: Re: Tuning old upright players I've got a 1915 Hamilton Manualo just like that, and I'm having a heck of a time getting the player mechanism installed so that all 88 fingers engage properly. I was able to find the original tech manual for it on the web! --Cy Shuster-- Bluefield, WV ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan" <tune4u@earthlink.net> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 9:22 PM Subject: RE: Tuning old upright players Odd that this post came up today. I just spent two days with a 1926 Hamilton that does not have any tilt-out options. A wing nut and bracket holds down each end of the top assembly; three small tubes and one large one have to be removed; the speed control linkage unhooked, then the whole top comes out including a triple deck set of bellows that engage metal fingers on each sticker. It's not too bad a job but it is quite heavy and has all those fragile looking parts that make it kind of scary to deal with, n'est ce pas?
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