CAUT

  • 1.  Vertical Damper Spoons

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-06-2022 11:20
    In updating an 1879 3/4-plate 48" Stwy vertical, I have to convert the wippen-damperlever contact from wooden "spoon" (fixed flange) & setscrew in the damper lever, to the modern metal spoon. I have 50  such spoons, leftover from when supply houses had them, and need another ~25. Unfortunately, no one (Pianotek, Schaff, Forte Piano Supply, Renner, Stwy) carries them. I thought I might make do with the spoon for the grand rep's jack-adjust button. Unfortunately, the latter is flat, as opposed to an actual "spoon" curve, and unlike the jack-adjust spoon, the vertical damper spoon is moving (as with its damper lever).



    Any idea about a back-channel to a piano factory, as a source? I'm going to do the conversion with the 50 I have (from the bass on up, where most of the wire spending is done). Maybe, I can assume that the "flat" spoons won't dig as much into the damper lever felt if I put a slight bend in the spoon so that its top edge is no longer the first to hit the felt.

    But I'd love to find some real upright damper spoons.

    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    +++++++++++++++++++++
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Vertical Damper Spoons

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-06-2022 13:41
    Salvage some from an old action whose piano was junked?
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." Brecht






  • 3.  RE: Vertical Damper Spoons

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-07-2022 08:30
    Dang, I just demolished two of them this Fall: an ornate I&P, and a no-name ("Milton", who knows …) 48"-er from the '30. But both of those had damper flanges offset from the butt flanges: straight spoons to be bent to cover the offset. I need one from a double-flange action, a Stwy or a Baltimore Knabe.

    Schaff used to offer their connections to the piano industry for odd parts not called-for enough to get in their catalog. But that was back when this country had a piano industry. Probably these would have to come special order from the EU, something that Jurgen or Melanie Brooks could swing.

    ------------------------------
    William Ballard RPT
    WBPS
    Saxtons River VT
    802-869-9107

    "Our lives contain a thousand springs
    and dies if one be gone
    Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
    should keep in tune so long."
    ...........Dr. Watts, "The Continental Harmony,1774
    +++++++++++++++++++++
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Vertical Damper Spoons

    Posted 06-01-2022 14:19

    Piano Forte does not have them, but we can get them for you. They are straight, with no bends in them.

    Contact me directly if you still need hem Bill.



    ------------------------------
    Jurgen Goering
    ------------------------------