Oh, have FUN.
Back in the 1980's I used to work on these. A shop selling antique clocks was carrying them. The owner would go to Austria, buy fancy clocks, and also bring in a few Viennese grands which she'd pick up cheap. Of course, not being a piano person, she'd not know the danger signs to look for. I'd fiddle with them and get them more or less in tune with all the notes working and any broken wire replaced, in her customer's houses. It was fun, in a pretty strenuous way. I learned, for instance, how much repeated tuning was necessary to stabilize treble notes with those huge long, LONG waste lengths.
One day I looked at one she still had in the store. The damper lifter thingies were out of line, and I attempted to get the action out to straighten them up. Heck, I DID get the action out to straighten them up! Despite the case having warped, not leaving room enough for the action to pass. I forced it out. I sweat bullets till I had it forced back in again. Then I managed to regulate the crooked damper lifters, which were worse than when i started, through the strings.
The golden part of this struggle is that the horrified owner, having watched me do all this, never imported a Viennese grand again.
No, your concerns are very well-founded. Advice? Either explain that getting this thing working is beyond your skillset, due to the case having warped, or try to get it working without removing the action. It's quite possible that the case has warped more since the action was forced out the last time. I don't suppose you could plane a little bit off the bottom of the pinblock in the worst places? Well, I don't think I would try that either.
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Susan Kline
Philomath, Oregon
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-06-2017 10:59
From: Israel Stein
Subject: Viennese Action clearance under wrestplank/pinblock
To all Viennese action experts,
No good deed shall go unpunished... Trying to do a shank repair on one of those overgrown late 19th-century Viennese action 85-noters essentially as a favor. Having trouble getting the action out. Once the action drops down from its working position, there is plenty clearance between the pinblock and the back(?)checks in the midrange and the treble, but in the bass they protrude above the bottom of the pinblock. The clip that holds the checkrail in position is pretty loose, so I have to hold the rail down by hand - but even in the lowest position to which I can force it there still is about a millimeter's overlap between the top of the backchecks and the bottom of the pinblock. I am afraid to force the action out - as the backchecks (frontchecks?) could be forced into the hammers and break lots of them (of course the wood is old and brittle). I tried to angle the action somehow to get those bass backchecks under the pinblock - but then some hammers start flopping around into dangerous positions. According to the owner, the action had been taken out before, as far as she remembers - by brute force...
Is my concern misplaced? If not:
Has something happened to cause the overlap between pinblock and backchecks since the last time the action was out?
What could it be and why?
Any suggestions? (other than "leave that thing alone...")
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Israel Stein RPT
P.O. Box 68141
Jerusalem, Israel 9168002
510-558-0777
istein248@gmail.com
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