Hello everyone, and compliments on your professionalism and courtesy. I have a problem with some dampers on my 1954 Forster baby grand. The vertical rod that lifts the damper touches the edges of the sliding hole, which is now devoid of felt, generating an annoying noise. The technician suggested changing all the cylindrical sliding felts, but he will only be able to perform the work at the end of spring. In the meantime, could you kindly suggest something I can do personally to provide a temporary remedy for the defect? I am able to remove the keyboard and unscrew the damper rod. Thank you for any help you may give me and excuse me if I have used the forum incorrectly. Luigi
I don't think you can intervene if you don't have the right felt to pass through the hole and the reamer to reconstruct the hole. Naturally, when lowering the dampers, it will be advisable to check the wear status of the damper felts. The holes must be lined with special cashmere felt with a white internal weave.
In the meantime, you can try passing a small strip of felt, stopping it at the end of insertion with a bit of glue. If the rod does not slide freely, file the tip to create the reamer you need to widen the lined hole
Thank you pianoexpert, I will try with the utmost caution. I'll take this opportunity to ask you one last thing. Today the copper-wound string of the E-flat 1 began to emit strange buzzing sounds, as if the copper is no longer adhering to the steel, at least I believe. Is there any temporary remedy here as well, while waiting for the technician to arrive with the new string? Thanks again and compliments once more.
Dear gigio, you have good intuition! Generally, this type of noise depends precisely on the lack of adhesion of the copper winding. You can loosen the string and turn, in the sense of the winding, the copper at the ends. If the noise does not disappear, the string must be replaced, or both if they are a pair. Before doing this, it is necessary to check if it depends on the hammer being too hard, which can be voiced. The technician must take their time and proceed with caution. Being able, first of all, to understand if it truly depends on the string. Also watch out if a noise is produced due to the iron of the damper, which, being too close, vibrates, grazed by the "belly" of the string set in vibration on the "forte" and on the "fortissimo".
