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Hey guys,

I’m learning how to regulate my own (upright) piano at the moment, and I have a conundrum with the damper pedal.

I know how to adjust the overall damper pedal timing, and I know how to adjust the spoons to change the damper lift timing when I press a key.

However, when I press the damper pedal, the dampers lift quite unevenly - several early - several late.

I can’t find any information on how to adjust this. I’m sure it’s obvious, but I’d love some pointers!

Is it an upright or a grand piano?

It’s a small upright - Weinbach

You bend the wires, after first making sure that all the damper lifter bar hinges are tight. I wedge the lifter bar up (at the end where the damper pedal rod lifts it) so I can see how far the dampers are from the strings, and make them even. You have to do this before you adjust anything else in the damper system. The lost motion needs to be taken out before you adjust the spoons.

Look for regulation instructions on line. I think Kawai has a good set. Follow them in order.

This doesn’t seem right. The wooden blocks the damper wires are attached to are moving unevenly - so bending the wires won’t solve the timing issue.

The levers move evenly when you depress the pedal. You bend the wires to make the damper heads lift evenly when you press the pedal. Then you go back and adjust the spoons.

It's ALL about bending wires.

Look for regulation instructions on line. BDB thinks Kawai has a good set. Follow them in order
+1

Regulating dampers in an upright can be quite challenging and if the piano is old the damper felt may not re-seat after adjustments. If everything is basically working now I would not mess with them.

I figured this out!

I don’t know if this is standard, but my piano has a little grub screw behind the felt on the base of the damper, where it sits against the damper pedal rail.

This lets me adjust each damper’s “rest” position, without really changing how the spoons interact with the damper when a key is pressed.

I tweaked all these grub screws so the damper line lifted together. Some of them had some lost motion so the dampers were lifting late, others were set so the dampers lifted early and never fully rested against the strings.

The damper wires needed some bending as well, but they mostly came into line when the screws were adjusted.