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Till now, I never regulated and voiced a drop action in a console piano. How do I remove and resinstall this kind of action? Do I have to remove all the stickers from the keys? Can I flip back and forth the action for voicing?

Thanks for all your help.
Regards Toni

There are several different types of drop action, and how you service them depends on how they are made. If they have wire stickers, then yes, you do have to remove all the stickers, and tie them up so that they will not interfere as you remove the action. However, you may not need to remove the action just to regulate and voice the piano.

You need the proper tools for adjusting the lost motion and a long regulating screwdriver for the let-off. You can usually file hammers with just strips of sandpaper. Needles in an adjustable voicing tool can let you voice the hammers in the piano. I find that having a variety of wire bending tools which I customize by bending their shanks lets me reach damper and bridle strap wires more easily, not just in drop actions.

Also, you have to recognize that drop actions were not put in the best pianos, and you may have to decide how much work it is worth doing for the piano. Work on these pianos will take you longer than on other actions, and it may not be worth it to you or the customer. It may be sufficient to take out the lost motion, which is fairly simple on drop actions with wire stickers. If there are wood stickers, I may adjust the rail to remove the bulk of the lost motion. I often do this gratis if I have extra time after tuning, so that the customer will enjoy the piano more, along with some rough voicing. But I will suggest they get a better piano if they want more than that.

Thanks for your answer. In Switzerland you can hardly find pianos with a drop action. I have tuned only two pianos in my whole career.
The piano sounds really harsh and stony, and I told the customer, that it would be better buying a newer one. But he likes the piano for emotional reasons...

The main reason is the ugly sound of the piano, so voicing is the most important thing to him (although the regulation is in a bad mood, too). The needed tool I have. I thought taking out the action , file the hammers and needling the hammers outside the piano first a little bit, a rough voicing, would be faster and more comfortable. The rest of the voicing of course in the piano.
So if I can move the action back and forwards a little bit to voice easier, I was happy.
Thanks again

Toni

There is no need to remove the action to voice the hammers in a drop action. If you want a copy of the updated version of my Piano Technicians Journal article on side-needle voicing, send me a PM.

Removing and then replacing the action in a spinet style piano potentially adds up to hours of work in itself, before anything at all is done to the action. Few spinets are worth it. And sentiment is not often powerful enough to open the wallet to any extent! I agree with the comments of others - adjust for lost motion, do some voicing with the action in place, and leave it at that.

Thank you for your help, I will try my best and will be very careful . Voicing is the most important thing on this piano.
Toni

If high demands regarding tone qualities are paramount, perhaps it is time to upgrade to a better piano. Usually you don't have to spend much money to get something that plays and sounds much better than a drop action piano.

I agree with Jurgen. For what you will have to charge for a job like this, your customer could put it to good use as a sizable down payment on a gently used piano of much higher quality.

I know, that changing the piano was the best thing. But: the customer loves his piano and I feel, that it is difficult to let him know that. It's that feeling in my fingertips, that there is a big emotional worth in that piano for him.
I try to be honest to him, in a careful way, but if he wantsme to do the job, I will.

Thanks for all your advices and your kind help.

Have all a good day, hope to hear from you, Toni

Is this an American-made piano?

If so, could you please give us the brand name and/or a photo or two?

Once the action is removed, working on it should be similar to working on any other vertical piano action.

But as everyone else here has said, you really should not need to remove the action to regulate and voice it.

Thanks,
-Joe

Any drop action spinet like what is described could benefit from tightening all of the flange screws just as with any other kind of action, from top of the line to bottom of the line.

I started out as a technician in my area working mostly on this kind of piano. I don't see them very much any more but if I had to take the one described here, I would plan on a full day service at a price equivalent to four tuning fees, plus maybe a little more. If the owner values the instrument as much as you say, it will be worth the price.

There are any number of different kinds of drop actions. The kind to be really careful about are the Baldwin type that have a guide rail for the stickers. If you get the stickers separated from the guide rail, you may waste an inordinate amount of time trying to get things back together again!

For that type, I simply loosen the screws that hold the guide rail, let it drop down and fasten it to the tops of the stickers with several large rubber bands. This works better than tying things together with a string which could come loose during the process and thus let everything fall apart and create a nearly impossible task of getting things back together again.

I have always noticed how many technicians will say that this kind of instrument is not even worth working on. I have also read any number of technicians say that they won't do anything that will make the instrument play or sound better.

It always seemed to me like a doctor in the Deep South (USA) during Segregation (or South Africa during Apartheid) who would not treat a Black patient or a Veterinarian who would not treat a mutt dog in either case, for the most simple of remedies.

It does require experience and technique to service a drop action spinet. For someone who is just beginning to service pianos of any type, the drop action spinet will be as formidable a task as any fine grand piano would be, if not greater.

This is why you see the suggestions more of what not to even try than what you should do. Tell the customer to get a better piano is the usual remark. I am afraid that the reason for that is that although the people who say that may be very competent at what they do know how to do, they do not know how to handle a drop action spinet with efficiency and grace.

The simple truth is that any such piano desperately needs its flanges tightened. It needs the debris under the keys to be removed with a vacuum cleaner. It needs to have its hammers aligned to the strings and most probably to have the hammers filed.

The key level and dip will probably be OK or only need minor corrections. The Lost Motion and Let-off (escapement) probably do need correction but once those adjustments are done, the action will usually play just as it is intended.

The expectation from the client will always be far lower for such an instrument than it will be for a fine grand or even a higher quality vertical.

The problem with Spinet pianos has always been the difficulty in providing even the most basic service that is far more easily and efficiently done in virtually any other kind of piano. (Only Birdcage pianos are worse!) That is the main reason that they are no longer built.

I worked many long hours with Andy from Rockford, Illinois, USA on his spinet piano. He came to the realization of how difficult it really was to service such an instrument and how meager the returns were for the hours spent. Nevertheless, once the instrument played and was tuned as the manufacturer intended, it was (and still is) delightful to him as it would be for your client.

At this stage of your development as a piano technician, you have to decide what you can do and what you can't do or should not even attempt at the moment.

If you do, as others have suggested, provide photos of the piano, I and others may be able to provide suggestions on how to go about making the piano better. Lifting a drop action out of a spinet is certainly not the greatest feat to be accomplished in the world. You will just want to know the best way to do it depending on just how the piano was built.

Just as it would be with any finer make of piano, I would not suggest that you attempt any regulation or voicing until you have covered the basics. That means: secure flanges, proper alignment and resurfaced hammers.

If you do not think you are capable of the above, then even the lowly Spinet is beyond your capability at this point.

Also, be careful to see if the spinet has the rubberized screw/grommets at the end of the inverted stickers or lifter rods before quoting a price. They may be dry-rotted and may need to be replaced.

Here, Bill, I must disagree! "Meager returns"? Quite the contrary!!! At least, on the 1940 Lester with wooden elbows! I suspect there are other spinets where the returns for time spent might be meager, but I must say that, as someone who spends hours a day at this particular keyboard, that the returns were far from meager and immediately identifiable!!! (For which I thank you! )

In fact, I have been on a Handel Keyboard Suite kick of late (Nos. 13, 15 and 16), and am also working on a delightful Haydn sonatina, and there is something about the (now) fast, light touch coupled with the high singing tone of the Lester that is quite satisfying for these pieces, indeed!

Rysowers said something in another thread about what happens when a pianist gets to know one piano like the back of his hand, and so can make it perform. If that's your piano, then that's your piano, and you learn to work with it. As for the Lester, I have a vision!!! (I wish Horowitz could have stopped by my house to try my Lester!)



Emotional reasons, perhaps. Familiarity also, perhaps. But sometimes, fit is the more important issue. Over-sized shoes can look silly and cause blisters. Perhaps this piano fits its owner?

It probably sounds harsh and stony due to hard hammers. Along with other fine voicing techniques, consider trying a toothbrush-sized wire brush on the face of the hammers. Several techs in this forum have suggested it, and I tried it on the Lester after playing the hammers to grooves (again) and it worked nicely for a while... I am back to using needles, now, and am considering another round of filing.

BTW, recordings of my Lester are, um, easily found on Piano World and on my YouTube channel, if you want to hear it and track its progress of improvements...

Each piano owner must do his/her own personal calculus in such matters. It is not always about the money!

--Andy

WOW
Bill's Back!

(I had the same thought. Let's see what we can learn, Jurgen... quietly and gracefully.)

Welcome back, Bill, I've missed you.

Birdcages are indeed worse but them and spinets are where I honed my skills.

A felt hammer hitting steel strings is pretty much a felt hammer hitting steel strings on a birdcage or the finest concert grand. I don't understand a technician passing up such a perfect opportunity to practice finer skills. The end result is always better than the piano ever had any right to be.

The condition we find most of them in, we couldn't possibly make 'em worse.

There has to be more job satisfaction in making a 1000% improvement in a spinet that anyone would notice than the improvement on a fine grand for the same amount of work that only cognoscenti would appreciate.

Regular isopropyl 70% alcohol sprayed onto the surface of the hammers - along with a brass brush is a good prelude to needles. Controlled steam voicing can also be helpful in these situations; that's if the client won't agree to a full day's work.

Side needling, "angel shot" technique, both are good for quick results.

Check out the youtube video link below - there's something on voicing there.

Sometimes the brushing and alcohol serve to show the potential for voicing - a quick change to the tone that doesn't last very long gives the client an inexpensive preview of what a 'real' voicing can accomplish more long term.

Oh so true! At the age many of these are now, the action will exhibit considerable clatter. The clatter will come from both the need to have the flanges tightened and hard/brittle grommets. The rubber is like that of a windshield wiper. Outdoors on a car, it starts to get brittle in about 6 months. In a piano, about 30 years.

On some of these, you dare not even try to adjust the lost motion because the material will crumble. A bag of grommets only costs about $15 but installing new ones may take 2-3 hours.

Most of these instruments by now will need a half to full day's worth of work to put them in good sounding and playing condition. I have had very little resistance from people to pay what that costs in order to enjoy the piano that they have again.

Bill, I request you withdraw your devisive and unfounded statement about whites and make a public apology here too for such language.

Some facts about what whites in South Africa have done for blacks, even prior 1994, and this is just a small drop in the ocean,

"The biggest hospital in the world, Baragwanath with 3200 beds and at its peak almost 8000 staff had 23 operation theatres fitted out with the most modern medical equipment that existed in the world. Blacks were treated here, operated on...at full state costs to the white-taxpayers for unlimited periods. The budget of this hospital was and is higher than the yearly budget of most small member states of the United Nations.

Next door to Baragwanath is the St. John's Eye Clinic. The clinic is world famous for the treatment of Glaucoma, Cataracts, traumatic eye injuries and rare tropical diseases. All built and maintained by white taxpayer's money for blacks.

Baragwanath in 1978 employed 450 medical doctors in full-time service. It treated 112 000 in-patients and 1.62 million out-patients per year. The children and infant death rate with 34.8 per 1000 was lower than Harlem in New York.

In 1982 alone, this hospital performed 898 heart operations of world quality.

Ironically...90% of the blood donors for this hospital were whites, who donated blood free of charge, total voluntarily...to save black lives. (Quoted from The Citizen, 2 April 1987).

Whites have already given blacks their blood. What more do they want?"

There were many whites working there in those days who got black blood on their hands seeking to save some from the brutal black ANC attacks!

The following are snippets/excerpts written by an American on the white South African demise,

"It is not often these days that we see an article from America standing up for South Africa’s besieged white farming community, or for South African whites in general, and exposing the ANC’s anti-white agenda. We were therefore very encouraged to see the following article, published by WND and written by Alex Newman, on 19 August 2012. It is well worth reading and digesting,

"To many people in the West, especially liberals and leftists, I think it is seen as normal for blacks to hate whites and oppress them,” he explained. “Because of their historical guilt associated with colonialism, whites are deemed to deserve punishment, even of the most extreme kind such as torture and mass murder.”

Even in South Africa, the press is largely silent about what is going on. Consider that after Stanton announced his preliminary findings in late June – explosive by any measure – just one newspaper covered it."

"The ANC regime has failed completely to create jobs for its mass of supporters,” Roodt told WND. “So it is using the white minority as a scapegoat, blaming them for its own economic failures due to corruption, mismanagement, nationalization, racial preferences and so on.”
Roodt says the “revolution” could drag on, slowly, with a lot of talk but little action. On the other hand, there could be a sudden, radical shift such as what happened in Zimbabwe, where white farmers who refused to be driven off their land were tortured or murdered.
There could even be a Rwanda-type situation in which whites would be targeted for wholesale slaughter, Roodt warned."

"The government, meanwhile, has already launched a campaign to disarm Afrikaner farmers. As Genocide Watch observed in a recent report on South Africa, disarmament of the target group is one of the surest warning signs of impending genocide.

Whites have not been the only victims. Even before apartheid was dismantled, the ANC was notoriously brutal to its opponents, using some of the most barbaric tactics imaginable even against blacks who refused to bow down.
Necklacing, in which a tire filled with gasoline is placed around a victim’s neck and set on fire, for example, became a common form of punishment for dissenters and ANC opponents. Even Nelson Mandela’s wife endorsed the monstrous practice.
Beyond genocide against whites lurks another largely overlooked but related phenomenon: the efforts by communist forces to completely take over South Africa."

"The non-stop wave of grisly, racist murders in the Rainbow Nation – new incidents are reported almost daily now – has led Genocide Watch to conclude that South Africa is close to the final phases of the genocidal onslaught.
When ANC Youth League boss Julius Malema began singing “Kill the Boer,” Genocide Watch moved up South Africa to stage six out of eight on the road to genocide – the preparation and planning. The seventh phase is extermination of the target group. The final stage is denial."

Mr. Davis,

You are over analyzing Bill's analogy.