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Oooooo. I wanna play!!!! I wanna play!!!! Can I play with it toooooo???

Well, if you show up here, maybe we can go over and play with them together some time. There are a bunch of other pianos going in there, too!

That sounds like fun. One day I think I may have to do just that!

Finished up a hammer job on a church's studio upright which included repinning a BUNCH of loose flanges. Call me picky, but I like to not only use tape to travel the flanges, but also to shim them to get the shanks into place, as well. Since I had to repin about thirty-five butt flanges in the mid-keyboard, why not just handle the shanks that way, rather than heat-and-bend. Since the flange is out, all surfaces are available.

I used a single needle on the Abels. Lots of deeeep needling of the shoulders. There will be more needed, but I will give them some time and soften more at the next tuning in a few months.

I'm just glad I could take over that Sunday school room as a shop for the two days. So a half day yesterday and the entire day today to do all that, then hot hide glue the hammers, tune the piano, and some voicing. It was a good day and was ready to get out of there for supper!

It is adviseable to pre voice vertical hammers, so much easier then to finish the job in the piano. As force is necessary the vertical is less easy.

Gummed tape does not move like adhesive (the glue make the tape slip when pressed) I dont know if it is sold , I have dome from Yamaha, some from Renner and some made with a paper schreder)

Usually when new shanks are installed they are adjusted at their bottom so they space neat despite some unevenesses in butts or flanges. Papering under the flange works but because of the wire that straighen the flanges, some modification may be necessary. You are right to look for a perfect hammer position.

Changing heads on verticals is not easy but worth the trouble.

Electrical shank heater huge tool

Phil,

I hope this is not too stupid a question. I'm trying to understand what you mean by "shimming to get the shanks into place". Would this not be done by spacing (and slightly rotating if needs be) the flanges? Could you elaborate somewhat? Where would you be shimming, to obtain which effect?

Nothing new or dramatic. In fact you are saying the same thing - "spacing". How to do that can vary: Heat bending, paper shimming, or just force it over and hope a tight screw can hold it (not!).

If a shank needs to lean left or right, a piece of paper shim can be glued under one corner of the flange to correct that. It is usually just slipped under a loosened flange with no adhesive. Alternately, the shank could be heated and bent to affect the change. Since I had to disassemble so many butt assemblies in this vertical piano (and only due to that), I decided to permanently attach these shims to the flange as I was doing the repinning work. Old fashioned brown paper packaging tape which has hide type glue on it works well: Just snip into strips, lick and stick. (Joking! No licking with those dirty fingers.)

By sticking the shim to the flange, when I work on a flange the next time for any reason, it doesn't fall away into the action. When that happens, one can often reassemble that part and not realize that the shim is now missing. "Why is this shank out of line now? Why is the travel off now?" I hate it when that happens.

Sure ! With a good quality gummed tape you can glue it without dismounting the butt.

Spacing is similar on verticals than on grands more or less :

First space the flanges, then space the shanks , then space the hammers.

Then travel the hammers and "burn" the shanks, the 2 operations being closely related. Of course with enough experience one can mix the operations, but I find it faster in the end to proceed by order, once roughly, then more precisely. On verticals papering is not easy so I try to be efficient.

A shank that need to be inclined can have its flange papered under one side, with a thick enough paper as to fight the straightening due to the wire or wood lip on the rail

What did I do today?

Well, ... I breathed in and out a lot. Just for laughs I divided the breathing count by two and discovered that the intakes roughly equaled the exhalations. The whole process worked so well that I'm gonna' keep it up and recommend it to everyone I meet.

I also noticed it improved my tuning greatly.

David sat around all day long reading Jerry's posts and everyone else's too. hehe, Jerry did the same thing....

yes , but when you are sleeping you can count 3 for the whole process, that is how you can be sure someone is asleep...

Snow day. I was off 'cept I had to run the durned snow blower. 'Got a couple of face fulls when the wind shifted. That white global climate change stuff we get here sure is COLD!

Haha, I can picture that too! POOF. Been there, done that to many times! Hey, guess what? Not much snow here at all. In fact, i can walk down the street and it's dry! ha ha! It sure is nice! But, just in case, we hired a snow plow for $200 for the winter. He's only had to come twice. He's loves this kind of weather too. He doesn't have to work much. So, I set here wishing I could work, and he probably sets there hoping that he can work too.

It's going down to 50 degrees tonight. BRRRRRRR

Darn! The 'gator filter isn't working. It's supposed to keep Florida agitators from posting stuff about warm sunny Florida weather. What's up with that Frank?

I'll take Maine in the summer anytime. It does get a tad hot here in August, David. This time of year is our "summer" - mild weather, and not too much rain.

Yeah. Bob LOVES to remind me of that on a regular basis.... 50 at night... Hey Jer, 80 today! Shut up Bob! I can hear him laughing about it without seeing him cause I know him. He's giggling right now already, right Bob?

Hey David, let's you and me go down there and bunk in with Bob for a couple weeks? How's that sound? Bob's buying the beer!!!!

It's been butt cold here the last couple of days. Was snowing but now it's "snot." Barely any on the ground though. Love that part of it.

It's always great to see some of the rebuilds I have done over the years. Today I tuned a Wellington upright which our shop did in 1979. The piano is now 101 years old. Back in 2000, I put in new hammers and repinned 45 butt flanges (according to notes on my customer card record).

It still has its original strings, still holds tune well, and has been played a LOT. We did a rejuvenation of the iron-wound bass strings back in '79 and they sounded very good for another twenty years. Even the upper bridge in the bass, which is maple, has not a single crack in it! Now, the bass strings are "tubby" again, so it may be time to recommend restringing...

Or maybe that would be premature of me.

The rest of the day was spent continuing a full voicing and regulation job on a 40+ year old Baldwin L. (I had started that with a morning's work on Thursday.) It's gonna sound Gooooooood. Better finish that up tomorrow morning!

'Can't go to florida, Jerry. There's an alligator down there that eats only tooners. I have that on good authority from a native who told me all about it. Poor guy had something in this right eye. He kept looking at his friends and blinking like he was trying to work it out, but he was real sincere in spite of his suffering, so I believe him.

I love ally gators. I kayak with them, walk around them, poke them with a stick, take pics of them. They are simply dogs with more teeth. Gentle little buggers.