Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum If lubricating doensn't seem to help.

A tech in the Netherlands suggested another trick: simply polishing the spring loop with copper cleaner.

This was done and the ticks disapperaed again.
The springs indeed looked dull and correded, copper being quite corrosion sensitive.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Do not want to clean the spring lops every fortnight or so!

schwammerl.

I had this exact issue a couple of weeks ago...
After going through the usual diagnostics I finally noticed that the traveling papers under the hammer flange were too long and were being hit by the drop screw cushion at the top of the repetition travel....very annoying...but an easy fix...
would be worth checking...

Let's see, the only lube i know of that is corrosion resistant is a "No-Ox" electrical connector grease. It doesn't travel, that would be bad for a conductive grease. It is made to stop the corrosion when using aluminum wires to copper stuff.

Roy,

I hate to burst your bubble...but I've had ticking happen in the Kawai millenium and abs actions. However, it's a straight forward fix: put some of that Protek greasy stuff on the end of the spring, and it's gone.

And I had this same problem on a good old wood wippened Yamaha G2 just yesterday.

I've had it it Seiler grands with Renner actions.

So there you go. Maybe nobody's immune from THE CLICK, except for that 1935 Brambach :p

Well, it's still a crying shame, no matter which piano it occurs on. Surely, any competent mechanical engineer, or anyone with a smart way with mechanical things could think of a different way of applying the spring force that wouldn't be subject to clicks.

All of the piano is a compromise. If you design it differently, you have a different problem that the design now doesn't have. In other words, you sacrifice speed or lightness or ease of adjustment or range of spring or cost or something we never even thought of, in order to solve a small maintenence issue.
It might be far more complicated than it appears.

Not all design is a compromise. Often, it isn't so hard to improve one aspect of a design without adversely affecting other things. The only possible adverse affect I see in this case could be a miniscule increase in price, but given the fact that the use of modern materials in various parts of the action could substantively lower costs anyway, and the industry by and large avoids them, I'm not sure cost is so important.

Thank you all again.

A last follow-up.

Most of the keys concerned are now mere or less OK, except for one were the problem is persistant.

All the suggestions were tried out (lubing/cleaning the wippen springs, twisting the springs to uncoil them, teflon on drop srew pad) and all that was suggested needing a ckeck (e.g. too long traveling papers under nhammer flange, loose parts etc.) was checked; all negative.
What can also be ruled out is jack heel/let-off butom contact and free play between capstan screw and wippen heel.

A last observation. One can make the tick disappear by exercing mild pressure on the far end of the wippen (repetition lver screw) while operating that particular key?

schwammerl.

So then the tick might be the spring moving against the repetition set screw.... as the spring tenses and releases....

Dan,

I don't follow you.

How could the butterfly spring touch the repetition lever screw as it is a few centimeters away from it and separated from it by the repetition lever flange?

schwammerl.

Yes you are right Schwammerl, my mistake I just had a second look at the pic. You got me on that one. I remembered the action picture incorrectly. I thought there was a tension screw on the top of the rep lever. As a matter of fact you mentioned that there was no rep screw in an earlier posting……….

Schwammerl.
I don't quite understand what you are doing when you say you pressure the rep lever height adjustment screw. Do you push down lightly just before letoff? If that's the case, what you have done is removed the pressure from the tip of the jack and caused drop to happen slightly late. The rep lever is taking the weight as if the spring was tight and the jack low.

This indicates to me that the sound is coming from the tip of the jack as it starts to move at letoff. It could be a moisture related thing as the weather changes. Take some strips of sand paper and clean and polish the knuckle. Remove the stuff they put on at the factory. 400 grit ought to give a slick surface. Steel wool the jack tips and use a dry bonded lube. Mclube 444 etc.

When the spring is set normal, the tick comes from the jack tip. When the spring is set hard, the rep lever comes up and takes the pressure off the jack but the spring makes a tick?

Nah, I just saw the flaws in this line of thinking. The jack and knuckle are already in motion....

Keith,

I also first suspected the tip of the jack.

But as you can also provoke the tick when the hammer shank is completely lifted off the repetion lever and then operating the key, the jack/knuckle contact cannot be the cause.

And yes when you then excerse mild pressure on the far end of the repetition lever (on the repetion lever screw - which btw is not loose), the tick disappears.

This morning some teflon powder was put in the spring slot of the rep lever and it's fine for the time being.

schwammerl.

Schwammerl & Keith,

I just thought of something else. Maybe it has to do with the spring assisted whippen flange. I have had experience where the silk tassel will come off of the little hook in the end of the spring and then slide along the spring wire partly and then shift back into the little hook at the end of the spring causing a click.

Because all of the parts are in motion at the time it took a little time to discover this one.

Also if you have a second look at the picture of the whippen there seems to be an extra piece of wood at the end of the whippen ……….on the top kind of curved………. like a hook or something. This must run between the flange sides….. or cause a click…. Or a rub…...
Loose knuckles?

The bend in the end of the wire isn't enough and the end of the wire is causing the tick as it settles into the felt. When you mess with the spring, it stays on top for awhile, then starts ticking as it settles into a groove.

Try bending the very end of the spring a little more.

Another guess!!!!

Dan,

What did you do to to prevent the auxiliary spring sliding in the silk tassel?

Keith,

What do you mean by the 'very end' of the spring; the end AWAY from the repetition lever flange?

schwammerl.

The end that sits in slot you lubed with teflon. It has a felt pad in the grub, right. We are talking butterfly spring. The end of the spring has a swoop in it ~ . If the end doesn't curl away from the felt enough, it could dig into the felt. Make sure the ~ is enough. One action company had this problem not to long ago.

I believe the spring is sliding away from the wippen flange as it is compressed.

A loose rep lever flange. Try a drop of some Ca glue.

Schwammerl,

I touched them with a diluted carpenters glue to give them just enough traction or friction to NOT move around in the little half-loop there.

On another action that had the same springs but on top of the hammer flange, I had the same problem. I made the loops smaller by putting a twist in the silk tassel……

More guesses: Hammer attachment rail loose? Hammer rebound rail loose? Really I would dismantle one complete mechanism and felt all the spring contact points. The important one would be the one underneath the rep lever. Do one on the end and see what happens. The heavy end and then the light end. One of each, bass and treble.

Problem finally soved for all keys.

A combination of lubing the groove, opening up the spring coil by stretching the spring to the treble side ....

...and finally for the last persistant key, Keith's suggestion of bending the end of the spring wire so it bends away enough.

Thank you all very much. Great effort!

schwammerl.