Ya gotta laugh...

[piannaman at aol.com]

 Sometimes a 1 minute adjustment can turn into an aggravation!
 
Dave Stahl


-----Original Message-----
From: dnereson at 4dv.net
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 12:03 AM
Subject: RE: Ya gotta laugh...


Had a similar problem on a new Kawai or Young Chang or something.  The wing nut would not take out any lost motion in the pedal.  It wouldn't pull the pedal prop up through the metal pedal lever, and when I loosened the wing nut, it spun up the pedal prop, leaving a gap between it and the top of the pedal lever.  Tried to pull the prop through the lever, or push it down, and it wouldn't go either way.  It was threaded into the flattened end of the tubular pedal lever and the only way to adjust the pedal was to turn the prop with a vise grips.  I thought, "This can't be right.  Why would they thread the prop into the lever?  Then what would be the purpose of the wing nut?  Why are they re-inventing the wheel?"  
    Well, it turned out the hole for the pedal prop was just a bit small, and it only appeared to have the prop threaded into it.  Didn't have a drill with me, so I reamed the hole a bit larger with a rat-tail file, and presto, everything back to normal!
    --David Nereson, RPT    
-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org]On Behalf Of piannaman at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 7:59 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Ya gotta laugh...


Yesterday, I did a warranty tuning on a Yamaha P-2.  The piano was in great shape, at pitch, everything in place, no broken spring cords.  I went to adjust the pedal and found that the wing not wouldn't go far enough down the pedal bolt to take out the excess play.  Inspection showed that someone had wanted to "secure" their fine pedal adjustment by wrapping many layers of masking tape around the threads.
 
I removed the wing nut, pulled the bolt down and scraped off as much tape as I could.  I couldn't find the felt punching that had rolled away when I undid the nut, so I replaced it with a spare Wurzen punching I had in my kit.  Put it all back together, and found that I couldn't adjust the pedal so that I was getting enough lift OR adequate damper seating.  
 
Everything seemed in perfect order.  I removed the action to look for loose pedal rod brackets.  Nada.  Futzed around with adjustment.  Still nada.  
 
After about ten minutes of exasperation, I ran a screwdriver through the pedal mortise over the top of the pedal.  Out popped the missing punching, which had been pressing down on the pedal the whole time!
 
Mondays have been an adventure lately.
 
Dave Stahl

Dave Stahl Piano Service
650-224-3560
dstahlpiano at sbcglobal.net
http://dstahlpiano.net/






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