Kimball La Petite Clicking

[Delwin D Fandrich]

| -----Original Message-----
| From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org 
| [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Rob & Helen Goodale
| Sent: February 27, 2007 9:18 AM
| To: Pianotech List
| Subject: Re: Kimball La Petite Clicking
| 
| . . .  I can tell you from experience 
| there is no way you will ever get one to "perform".  If you 
| can get them to play at all, clicks or not, I would leave it 
| alone.  Lubricating the knuckles with a light coat of Teflon 
| powder is probably the only thing economically worth doing.
 
Well, it is true these pianos did leave something to be desired in terms of
build quality. To me it has long stood out as a classic case of reasonable
design cheaped to death by cost cutters who had no knowledge whatsoever of the
types of wear a piano action is subjected to. 

The idea behind this action was to reduce its overall height, making the
aesthetics of the short piano a little more balanced. And it did accomplish this
goal without all that much sacrifice in performance potential. The action design
itself was not all that bad and, with a little creative work, can be made to
perform rather nicely -- probably about like the designers originally intended.

The details are now lost to fading memory but I did once rebuild one of these
actions for a piano performance major who used the piano some four plus hours a
day and got it to stand up as well as any other action would have under the
circumstances. The work involved changing out some of the inappropriate
regulation screws (to different types) and replacing all that ridiculous foam
"rubber" stuff that must have been cheaper than leather at the time. But the
action did regulate reasonably well and, as I said, it did stand up well after I
was finished with it.

Of course, it still sounded like a 4' 7" grand having a somewhat less than ideal
scale and soundboard. But, it's what the student had (a gift from a loving
relative) and it did last out the four years of piano study.

Del