At 11:59 -0400 22/6/10, Patrick Draine wrote: >Hello, especially to our friends across the pond. I have a customer >who has recently acquired a 4' 4" Dagmar grand piano (made in the >UK), and wants me to fix up (or totally rebuild) the moderately >sluggish action. Serial numbers seem to have been scratched or >otherwise obscured. >What is the correct tuning tip for this piano? -- my Watanabe #1 tip >flops around the tuning pinÊtipÊuncontrollably. >Are action parts (hammer butt, wippen) for this available through UK >supply shops? >How good (or dreadful) do these seem to be, in your experience? I'm >guessing it is at least 80 years old, in the same league as early >Haines micro grands, or the later Kimball Petite. This is just a typical English commercial baby grand of no great distinction but probably quite solid. The action is probably by Herrburger Brooks and is often (I think erroneously) called the Simplex action. I know that the machines to make this action were destroyed quite a few years ago, but you should need no new parts. Just re-centre the hammer, lever and jack, blacklead and burnish the jacks and renew the cushions. The silk loops normally only need replacing if thay've been roughly treated, and the springs rarely need replacing. You need to regulate the touch depth and blow as you ewould an upright, so that when the jack escapes it moves back just enough to allow free passage of the hammer into check and no further. Once you have regulated it, adjust the springs so that the hammer hovers about 5mm from the string after set-off. The piano is probably going to be pretty uninspiring but it needn't be too dreadful, and the action can be made to perform quite adequately. JD
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC