[pianotech] Damper Puzzler

[PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com]

Joe:
 
Is there a split tray to accommodate a bass sustain instead of the  real 
sostenuto?
 
Paul
 
 
In a message dated 3/3/2010 1:01:38 A.M. Central Standard Time,  
defaziomusic at verizon.net writes:

Here is a puzzler I  encountered last week.  Someone may get it right away, 
but it took me  some head scratching to figure out, and I had never seen it 
before:


The piano was a circa  1930 generic little american grand.  I was called in 
to repair the lyre  (the regular tuner is blind and does not do that type 
of repair work).   Of course, assessing damper function was part of the job, 
and it was  reasonably OK except for the puzzler:


Whenever I depressed the  sustain pedal (after repairing the lyre) two 
adjacent bass bichords sounded,  as if they had been plucked.  However, when I 
reached inside and lifted  either or both of the underlevers by hand, there 
was no plucking sound.  


Just to rule out some  things, the underlever leads and flanges were tight, 
the guide rail bushings  were worn but not terrible, and the damper wires 
were not touching or almost  touching the strings.  The damper heads and 
felts were not  interfering with their neighbors.  The damper felts were old, 
but no more  so than their quiet neighbors.  There was no sostenuto mechanism. 
 That's where I was when my head scratching commenced, as shall yours, if  
you're in an itchy frame of mind.


Joe DeFazio
Pittsburgh
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