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THE
FEBRUARY 10, 1923
MUSIC
TRADE
11
REVIEW
OuTTECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
CONDUCTED
GRAND ACTION REGULATING
Further Observations on Some Special Points
in Connection With the Art
"Dear Mr. White:—You covered the subject
of Grand Piano Regulating very nicely in both
your Theory and Practice of Pianoforte Build-
ing and your Modern Piano Tuning; but I want
to tell you that I still enjoyed reading your most
recent articles on the same subject in the Janu-
ary issues of The Review.
"1. I should now like to ask why it is better
to have more play in an old action than in a
new one.
"2. When you were telling about getting the
dip of the keys it made me think of a tool I
made which was copied from one I saw in a
factory. I send you a cardboard model.
"3. Did you ever find a piano in which about
one-half of the wires in the bass dampers are
bent so that they will not work properly? How
would you go to work to regulate them? Re-
spectfully, W. A. Kingman, Pittsfield, Mass."
Play in Old Actions
The point about more or less play between
the parts and the movements in an old grand
action is very simple. I was referring mainly
to such contact points as the capstan screws
and the front-rail and balance-rail pins on the
keys. It is well not to regulate the jacks too
closely under the rollers and also just as well
to leave some play in the keys, simply because
in old actions these springs are always more or
less weak and the parts unable to respond with
perfect certainty unless a little allowance is
made for age. I always have found it best to
regulate an older piano just a little less del-
icately than the rules call for, because you can-
not depend upon an old action to behave as
securely as a new one does. That was all I
had in mind.
2. The little cardboard model is rather hard
to understand. It appears to refer to a light
wooden framework to be placed over the keys
to measure off the depth of dip. But I could
not quite see the details from the model. It
might be well to have a drawing made.
3. Sometimes one finds a used grand with
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2328 Penn St.
K a n s a s City. Mo.
FAUST SCHOOL
OF TUNING
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Alumni of 2000 "
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tad Player Piano. Year Book Free.
27-29 Gaintboro Street
BOSTON, MASS.
WILLIAM BRAID WHITE
badly bent damper wires. The only possible
remedy, of course, is to remove the wires and
bend them back into place. But the job is not
one to be left to the tender mercies of an ama-
teur. If one examines carefully the damper
action of a grand piano one finds that the
damper wires have two points of contact at
which their adjustment is important. These are
at the damper block and at the bushed socket
in the damper wire-rail. When a wire, or set
of wires, has to be taken out the first thing to
do is to loosen the screw in the block and lift
out the damper entirely. Then the rust should
be cleaned from the wire and the entire piece
replaced without tightening the screw. Then
one can sec (1) whether the wire passes through
the bushing straight, or whether it tends to stick.
If it sticks it should be withdrawn and straight-
ened with the wire-bending pliers, which is the
only satisfactory tool in a case like this. Then
it should be replaced and the screw tightened.
Next, one should examine it to see if the
damper-head now falls square on the string.
The latter may be plucked while the damper-
head rests on it to see whether the damping
is as it should be. If the damping is imperfect
the head needs to be straightened until it rests
squarely upon the string. The wire may be
loosened from the block, the damper withdrawn
and the wire then bent as required.
One must always be careful to see that the
wires are replaced so that they lift at the right
moment after the keys come in contact with
the damper blocks. These blocks originally
were lined up in the factory at the right height
from the key-bed as determined by measure-
ment, so as to be at the right distance above
the keys, according to the instructions given in
the recent articles. In retightening any damper
wires which have been loosened one must be
sure that the damper block is not allowed to
line up any higher or lower than it originally
was.
Bending damper wires is what one may
rightly call a "fussy" job. But it is not difficult
if one keeps one's wits sharp and uses the right
sort of tools.
On Using Good Tools
The above observations lead naturally to
others. There is a rather deplorable tendency
on the part of technicians to use makeshift
tools. I have heard it urged, in palliation of
this offense, that a good mechanic can do good
work with any tools. Now, this is nonsense.
There may have been a time, in the days when
precise measurement was the exception and not
the rule, when it was possible to get along with
a few general tools. But to-day we have so
much special machinery of all sorts that we have
to use special tools, and unless we do use them
we simply cannot adjust such machinery as
should be adjusted.
The piano oilers a case in point. Its action
TUNERS
is extremely delicate and the adjustments re-
quired on it are, for wooden machinery, very
fine indeed, though, of course, they do not ap-
proach the micrometer fineness of ordinary ma-
chine-tool work. Considering the nature of the
material, however, they are very fine. To en-
able mechanics to make these adjustments a
large number of special tools have been devised
and they should always be used for adjustment
and regulation. To try and get along without
them is to run the most serious risks of doing
defective and clumsy work, such as no good
mechanic likes to do.
For instance, it is wrong to try to do with-
out a pair of key pliers. One can indeed often
manage to pinch in the front or balance-rail
mortises of a key with an ordinary pair of
parallel pliers; but, for one thing, work thus
done is never neat, because the plier-jaws al-
ways damage the outside of the key, while on
the other hand the sort of man who will not
buy a pair of key pliers is the sort of man who
will not have parallel pliers either.
Then, again, it is simply impossible to do neat
work on wire-bending unless one has the special
pliers designed for that purpose. Of course,
there are regular wire-bending irons which are
good enough for rough work. But when one
tries to bend damper wires, dowel wires under
keys, and so on, one soon finds that the pliers
alone give one the necessary command. They
are powerful and at the same time delicate.
To take another case, it is a sign of a poor
{Continued on page 12)
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