Update: Schimmel Regulation Problem

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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Scott,
 
This is interesting, and good to know though most of us will probably never  
see it.  It seems like your fix is an easier one than replacing action  
brackets.
 
Makes me wonder if the action brackets did the opposite of what Young  
Changs' are known for!  Now we're going to have "Shrinking Schimmel Action  
Brackets..."  
 
Thanks for the update,
 
Dave Tahl
 
In a message dated 3/18/05 6:10:53 PM Pacific Standard Time,  
tuner@helmsmusic.net writes:

Hi all  -

You might remember some time ago that I had posted a problem I was  having
with a Schimmel grand action in which I couldn't get letoff close  enough
to the strings. I thought somebody might be interested in the  resolution.
The company FINALLY replied to my many requests for help (after  2 weeks of
long distance calls and emails to Germany) and suggested what  some of you
had also mentioned - that I unscrew the letoff rail from the  underside of
the hammer rail and plane it down a few mm to raise the letoff  buttons
higher. However, that was not what I ended up doing for a couple  of
reasons. First, the letoff rail was in 4 separate sections, and I  was
concerned that I would not be able to be consistent in the amount  of
material I took off of them. But more importantly, the threaded  metal
posts that the dowel letoff buttons screw onto went all the way  through
the rails, which would mean that I'd have to remove all of them  before I
could plane the rails down - a huge and tedious job, and I'm not  sure the
metal posts would be tight enough if I removed and re-installed  them.

Some of you suggested that I needed to check hammer bore, so I  did that
and discovered that there was a 9 mm difference between hammer  bore and
string height (in other words, the shanks were WAY beyond  horizontal when
the hammers contacted the strings). This seemed to me to  point to my
original thought that the action brackets were too short, and  therefore
hammer rail/letoff rails were too low. I used 1/8" aluminum stock  to make
shims to put between the top of the action bracket and the bottom  of the
hammer rail, which got the hammer bore closer to string height and  also
gave me a lot more room to raise the letoff buttons. It worked like  a
charm - the action regulated perfectly!

Schimmel told me that this  was not an uncommon problem, and was not
specific to Schimmel grands.  However, I've never run into anything like
this before, and only one other  tech who responded to me had ever heard of
it either. That person said he  remembered the same problem on another
Schimmel grand from the same era  (1985), and the company had to send
replacement action brackets that were  taller. For some reason, Schimmel
didn't offer that option, so I  improvised. I appreciate everybody's input
on this problem!

Has  anybody else had a problem communicating with Schimmel? It was like
pulling  teeth to get them to respond to me at all.
-- 
Scott A. Helms,  RPT
Helms Music Enterprises
(269)  381-4521
www.helmsmusic.net


 

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