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Bit of a head scratcher! Working on a F.Weber overdamper upright piano. The action doesn't release in the normal way, it seems to be attached at the bottom but no sign of a screw to undo. Anyone ever managed to get one of these out? Photos here: Photos
There are two latches about 3/4 of the way up that hold the action in place. Flip those up, and the action will flip down from the top and you can lift it out.
Thanks for the message! I should have said in my original post, I obviously undid the latches. The action then can lean a few centimeters back but it is still attached to the piano at the bottom. It is attached to the upright pieces of wood in the picture - I think it is screwed to it but I can's see how to access or release either the action or the pieces of wood.
It might be combined friction of felt pads on the bottoms of all the stickers, against the sides of the holes in the keysticks, that is preventing the action from simply lifting away. You could try lifting one sticker out, with the action not tilted, and see how it feels. It might be necessary to tease them all out individually, before the action will lift away....
Thanks David. I will try this, although I took half a dozen keys out to have a look at the key frame and they didn't feel too stiff to remove. The part that feels attached is very much the 'feet' of the action.
Try removing the cheek blocks and the keyslip. The entire action plus keyboard may come out in one piece, kinda like a grand action. When the stickers are dowels inserted into holes or cups in the key end, this is likely.
Ed Sutton, RPT Just an old retired piano tuner! Durham NC USA
F. Weber was a company in Berlin, not the AmericanWeber co. German overdamper pianos were well designed and well made. They can be restored to very good playing capacity. They should not be compared to the English birdcage pianos.
This video shows an 1881German piano with a virtually identical action
As I said, I believe the action will come out in one piece, hammers, dampers and keyframe all together. This should be approached with careful curiosity, not frustration and force. When you find the solution, it will come out easily and will in retrospect be obvious. This could be a very good piano.
Ed Sutton, RPT Just an old retired piano tuner! Durham NC USA
Ed, this video is absolutely fascinating! I think this will probably be the solution - I will be going back to the piano to try this as soon as I can. The action does indeed look exactly like this. Many thanks! Will post what I learn!
A history of piano dampers needs to be written, not just about the mechanics, but also about the music, the situations and the market economics.
-Haydn went to London, played the English pianos with "slow" damping, and wrote a new kind of piano music with a richer "mass" tone, different than what he wrote for the "fast" damping Viennese pianos. He took an English piano back to Vienna!
-German overdamper uprights have much faster damping than English birdcage pianos. There is a bit of "bleed" in the highest damped notes, but is that necessarily bad? A dedicated search of YouTube will find a few examples of performance on these pianos.
-American square pianos and square grands don't sound like modern pianos. Look for recordings of singers accompanied by square pianos, Stephen Foster songs, for example.
-And those English birdcage pianos were built in thousands. Who bought them? What music did they play? That slow damping may give some body to simple home music.
...I'll go back to my cave...
Ed Sutton, RPT Just an old retired piano tuner! Durham NC USA
Hello all, tried this on the piano in question, and it does indeed work as the youtube video suggests. Firstly, remove the keyslip with 3 screws from underneath, as is normal. There are 6 screws underneath the keys. Two under D1, two under D4, and two under D7. These are attaching the action/key assembly to the keyframe. Once undone, as well as the latches, the entire assembly slides out. You don't need to remove the keyblocks. Thanks for your help, Ed! Here are a couple of photos for you: http://forum.pianoworld.com//ubbthreads.php/galleries/3243310.html#Post3243310
Thanks for sharing an update with pictures! I doubt I'll come across one of these in the field, but it was fun to follow along and learn something with this post.
Thanks for sharing an update with pictures! I doubt I'll come across one of these in the field, but it was fun to follow along and learn something with this post.
I came across one like this some thirty years ago, the only one I've encountered, as far as I recall. I don;t remember if it was a Weber, but it was German.