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I am working on a Chickering quarter grand built in 1906.

Having never worked on one like this before so I am stuck right off the bat.
How to you remove the action? Normally you would just remove the cheek blocks and slide the action out, but the cheek blocks are only 1/2" wide with no visible fasteners.

Please don't tell me the screws are under the legs - that would be the worst design ever.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Roger

The screws are behind the keyslip, into the cheeks.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I already had the keyslip off, but for some reason did not see these screws.

Thank you again for the quick response. You are a lifesaver!!!

Roger

Do yourself a favor and screw a leather "handle" into the front of action frame in the center (or slightly off to the left perhaps). This will greatly facilitate multiple yankings of the action and save your fingers. I'm working on a 1907 quarter grand with 121 scale.

Pwg

I tuned one of these yesterday. On this piano there was a small screw just above the key going into the side of the piano. Peter is right that the action is hard to remove because there is nothing to hold on to. I pulled the action out by the keys, but that is not a good practice for many reasons.

The biggest problem on this piano was with the dampers. The lift rail was warped and the damper levers in the middle section were binding against it at the back of the levers. The correct procedure would be to remove all the dampers and rework the lift rail. That was not an option for this piano so I cheated the offending dampers up as high as I could to get them to stop ringing. The dampers barely lifted when played, but as least they weren't ringing.

Things like that are often a sign that it is time to replace the key end felt. If it is worn in the middle, it can be impossible to get the dampers to work properly. At least that is an easy job.