CAUT

List,
Just finished my first celesta repair and regulation. The patient was a  3 octave Jen-Co celesta, which is considered  low  on the quality scale for celestas. That being said, an interesting learning curve to say the least. Thank you Fred Sturm for your helpful insight as  the serious head-scratching moments were kept to a minimum.
Work completed:
Removed and serviced all 3 racks of tone bars and hammer mechanisms.
Installed hold down screws for each hammer flange ( all were a glue-in type and all had come unglued). Very similar to the older Steinway backaction glued-in damper lever approach.
Rebush key bushings
Restring tone bars ( all strings were broke) The suggestion was to not restring with the nylon type string, but use 80lb fishing monofilament line.  Supposed to have good wear and better resonance
Replace damper felts, and a made a small dampening improvement to help with better dampening.
Regulate action ( again, thank you Fred Sturn for his advise). Since there is no let-off, the trick is to find a sweet spot between hammer blow and key dip. The hammer cannot block against the tone bar in a fff blow so you have to play around with the relationship between blow and dip until you find a good relationship. I ended up raising the key height a tad, then ended up with a 11.5 key dip and a 50 mm hammer blow
Regulate damper lift
Did not get into tuning the tone bars as they were right in the ballpark.

So a few thoughts:
1. With the advancement of the piano action already fully developed by the time celestas came onto the scene, why on earth didn't Jenco take note of the piano mechanism and incorporate that into their design? I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but this particular design is archaic at best.
2. Celesta's in general, have a heavy clunky feel their action. I had assumed that's because of a cumbersome mechanism. No, its because there's an incredibly tight return spring. Plus with very flimsy made keysticks, you couldn't even begin to weight-off the action in the traditional piano approach. Again, they could have taken note of from the piano community and incorporated some of the piano functions  into their system.
3. I realize there aren't a lot of celestas out there. And I'm sure this isn't cost prohibitive, but I would think someone could design a let-off system that could be incorporated in the Jenco design. Again, I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but the Jenco design is begging for someone to step forward and bring this up to a better level. And these aren't cheap. I was told that the good 5 octave Yamaha and Sheidmayer celestas are in the $45,000 range. Used 3 octave Jenco's in reasonable condition are in the $9,000 range. My client found this in horrible condition for $2500, so he was thrilled. This instrument will be put into his rental percussion inventory for all traveling orchestras coming through the SE USA.


------------------------------
Tom Servinsky
------------------------------

Thanks for sharing. About to embark on a celesta (will be my second) repair and I believe it will be something similar to this one. 

------------------------------
Brad Fant, RPT
Tallahassee FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-31-2017 18:58
From: Thomas Servinsky
Subject: My first Celesta repair

List,
Just finished my first celesta repair and regulation. The patient was a  3 octave Jen-Co celesta, which is considered  low  on the quality scale for celestas. That being said, an interesting learning curve to say the least. Thank you Fred Sturm for your helpful insight as  the serious head-scratching moments were kept to a minimum.
Work completed:
Removed and serviced all 3 racks of tone bars and hammer mechanisms.
Installed hold down screws for each hammer flange ( all were a glue-in type and all had come unglued). Very similar to the older Steinway backaction glued-in damper lever approach.
Rebush key bushings
Restring tone bars ( all strings were broke) The suggestion was to not restring with the nylon type string, but use 80lb fishing monofilament line.  Supposed to have good wear and better resonance
Replace damper felts, and a made a small dampening improvement to help with better dampening.
Regulate action ( again, thank you Fred Sturn for his advise). Since there is no let-off, the trick is to find a sweet spot between hammer blow and key dip. The hammer cannot block against the tone bar in a fff blow so you have to play around with the relationship between blow and dip until you find a good relationship. I ended up raising the key height a tad, then ended up with a 11.5 key dip and a 50 mm hammer blow
Regulate damper lift
Did not get into tuning the tone bars as they were right in the ballpark.

So a few thoughts:
1. With the advancement of the piano action already fully developed by the time celestas came onto the scene, why on earth didn't Jenco take note of the piano mechanism and incorporate that into their design? I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but this particular design is archaic at best.
2. Celesta's in general, have a heavy clunky feel their action. I had assumed that's because of a cumbersome mechanism. No, its because there's an incredibly tight return spring. Plus with very flimsy made keysticks, you couldn't even begin to weight-off the action in the traditional piano approach. Again, they could have taken note of from the piano community and incorporated some of the piano functions  into their system.
3. I realize there aren't a lot of celestas out there. And I'm sure this isn't cost prohibitive, but I would think someone could design a let-off system that could be incorporated in the Jenco design. Again, I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but the Jenco design is begging for someone to step forward and bring this up to a better level. And these aren't cheap. I was told that the good 5 octave Yamaha and Sheidmayer celestas are in the $45,000 range. Used 3 octave Jenco's in reasonable condition are in the $9,000 range. My client found this in horrible condition for $2500, so he was thrilled. This instrument will be put into his rental percussion inventory for all traveling orchestras coming through the SE USA.


------------------------------
Tom Servinsky
------------------------------

Enjoy the adventure!

------------------------------
Tom Servinsky
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2017 14:38
From: Brad Fant
Subject: My first Celesta repair

Thanks for sharing. About to embark on a celesta (will be my second) repair and I believe it will be something similar to this one. 

------------------------------
Brad Fant, RPT
Tallahassee FL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-31-2017 18:58
From: Thomas Servinsky
Subject: My first Celesta repair

List,
Just finished my first celesta repair and regulation. The patient was a  3 octave Jen-Co celesta, which is considered  low  on the quality scale for celestas. That being said, an interesting learning curve to say the least. Thank you Fred Sturm for your helpful insight as  the serious head-scratching moments were kept to a minimum.
Work completed:
Removed and serviced all 3 racks of tone bars and hammer mechanisms.
Installed hold down screws for each hammer flange ( all were a glue-in type and all had come unglued). Very similar to the older Steinway backaction glued-in damper lever approach.
Rebush key bushings
Restring tone bars ( all strings were broke) The suggestion was to not restring with the nylon type string, but use 80lb fishing monofilament line.  Supposed to have good wear and better resonance
Replace damper felts, and a made a small dampening improvement to help with better dampening.
Regulate action ( again, thank you Fred Sturn for his advise). Since there is no let-off, the trick is to find a sweet spot between hammer blow and key dip. The hammer cannot block against the tone bar in a fff blow so you have to play around with the relationship between blow and dip until you find a good relationship. I ended up raising the key height a tad, then ended up with a 11.5 key dip and a 50 mm hammer blow
Regulate damper lift
Did not get into tuning the tone bars as they were right in the ballpark.

So a few thoughts:
1. With the advancement of the piano action already fully developed by the time celestas came onto the scene, why on earth didn't Jenco take note of the piano mechanism and incorporate that into their design? I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but this particular design is archaic at best.
2. Celesta's in general, have a heavy clunky feel their action. I had assumed that's because of a cumbersome mechanism. No, its because there's an incredibly tight return spring. Plus with very flimsy made keysticks, you couldn't even begin to weight-off the action in the traditional piano approach. Again, they could have taken note of from the piano community and incorporated some of the piano functions  into their system.
3. I realize there aren't a lot of celestas out there. And I'm sure this isn't cost prohibitive, but I would think someone could design a let-off system that could be incorporated in the Jenco design. Again, I can't speak for other celesta manufactures, but the Jenco design is begging for someone to step forward and bring this up to a better level. And these aren't cheap. I was told that the good 5 octave Yamaha and Sheidmayer celestas are in the $45,000 range. Used 3 octave Jenco's in reasonable condition are in the $9,000 range. My client found this in horrible condition for $2500, so he was thrilled. This instrument will be put into his rental percussion inventory for all traveling orchestras coming through the SE USA.


------------------------------
Tom Servinsky
------------------------------