Upright Piano Regulation: Some Common Problems

[@WilliamFiler]

You just answered so many questions. I just took over a Smith and Barnes 1911 Upright Grand and its i great shape but it needs all this stuff, haha. I am a wood worker going to refinish it in my Envirolast Stain Beeswax Modified in a white washy, stoney grey of some sort, should be really neat project.

[@mareksieczkowski8474]

But why are bridal straps needed? Sebastian Erard introduced double repetition mechanism in grand piano 1821, and "=" Robert Wornum - the "tape check" mechanism in upright piano 1842. Robert Wornum constructed your the first upright piano in 1811. They were there before J. Hawkins about 1800 and J. Schmidt in 1780 - those upright pianos and the first Wornum's piano (1811) didn't have it yet of bridal straps (tape check) just as old grand piano in 18th and some oldest in 19th centuries didn't have double repetition too. "The value of this tape lies mainly in the slight extra pull it manages to impart to the hammer butt when the hammer rebounds from the string, and after the back check has caught the hammer and been released by the release of the key. The tape would not have any special. value but for the fact that the hammer, having' been caught by the back check, naturally would hang a little on the release thereof, if it did not receive the gentle pull caused by the fall of the wippen with which the bridle tape connects it. The tape is, in fact, to the upright action what the repetition lever is to the grand. Until these two features had been devised and applied to their corresponding actions, the piano was an extremely imperfect instrument. The modern upright piano owes its present touch effect to the tape just as the touch delicacy of the grand is due to the repetition lever. Of course the grand action is the mor~ delicate and responsive of the two, for it possesses the double repetition. This the upright cannot have, not to mention the fact that the fall of the hammer through gravity is of course far more effective than its retraction by springs. The upright action blocks more easily than does the grand, and finger movement must be higher to secure repetition."

[@TheShamwari]

Do you not have a video where you show how to correct all the problems ?

[@saveriosalerno9232]

From 1:29 the capstone does NOT adjust the distance from the hammer tip to the string!

[@SJPianoCo]

Yes, you are technically correct. The hammer blow distance in an upright is technically set by the rest rail. However, the capstan must be adjusted very close to the same position, so that there is just a tiny bit of lost motion before the jack begins driving the hammer. For that reason, to keep things simple I said that the capstan sets the blow distance. Furthermore, in a grand piano, the blow distance is set exclusively by the capstan, and it's not an inaccurate way to describe the function of the capstan in an upright. If the rest rail is moved to change blow distance, the capstans will have to be adjusted simultaneously, making them directly linked to blow distance.

[@gatussonorus5357]

Hi, How to solve the hammer bounce problem 3:03"

[@SJPianoCo]

The short answer is: to regulate the piano as described in the video :) In this case, the piano no longer has issues with bouncing hammers after we finished the regulation job. Bouncing hammers can have a number of different causes, including: too little friction in the hammer flange, checking distance too far, letoff too far, hammer return springs too weak (or missing), too little key travel, etc. The bottom line is that the hammer is not being controlled as it should at every point in its movement.