Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Worn dampers -> echo??

I am going to try to sell my beautiful old upright piano (~1913 Nordheimer) because I'm moving.

When I last went back to the house where it is, I noticed that there is something like an echo for about 20 seconds after I stop playing. I'm guessing that the dampers aren't fulling damping the strings anymore, and they should be replaced. Everything else still works fine on the piano as far as I know. Is it likely to be the dampers? How much would it cost one to replace them?

Thanks!

Tap the pedal gently while looking at the dampers. Do they move? They should not. If they do, the pedal is adjusted to tight. Just open the bottom panel and loosen the nut on the pedal screw.

Or it could be the spoons. Gently move the keys just a slight amount and look at the dampers. They should not move. If they do, the spoons need adjustment. A good tech can do that.

I charge $180 to replace all the dampers. An upright will never have completely efficient dampening. (At least I've never been happy with my work compared to what a grand sounds like.)

My advice. Need push on felt sides one of dampers using medical tweezers. Sometimes it helps

If pressed to do something about this, I would needle the felts if necessary. But the piano will probably be a hard sell in any case, so you might leave it for whoever takes it off your hands to deal with.

Imagine the seller use that surrealistic quote as an argument, the buyer will have a surprise when asking a quote.

For dampers it is even cheaper to mount new damper blades, cheaper than repair the old ones and change the damper heads.