As your piano tuner Wilmington DE, the last blog post was about the function of the repetition lever in the modern piano action. If you have not read that post, this would be a good time to read it, so that the following post will make sense. In it, we had said that the function of the repetition lever is to aid in the rapid reset of the escapement mechanism of the piano action, so that a note may be played rapidly a second time after it is first struck. This post will be about the adjustments to the repetition lever, so that it will work properly.
In order for a note to strike properly a second time, the “jack” must return to its initial position under the knuckle of the piano hammer shank. In order for that to happen, the repetition lever lifts the hammer shank, so that the jack may return. Two adjustments must be correct for that to happen. The first is the strength of the repetition lever spring. That spring must be adjusted so that the lever will slowly lift the shank, leaving room for the jack under the knuckle. If the spring were to be adjusted to operate too strongly, the hammer would be propelled up and strike the string a second time, disrupting the sound of the music. If the spring is adjusted to operate too weakly, the jack cannot return, and the note will “cheat’; that is, the key will go down but the hammer will not strike the piano string.
Once that repetition lever spring is adjusted properly, the repetition lever height must be set. If the lever were set too high, there would be lost motion” in the action, where the key would be played, but no response would happen in the movement of the hammer toward the string. If the height were set too low, the jack might not return for the rapidly played second note.
In the overall picture, these adjustments are two of the ten major adjustments to a piano action. They must be adjusted correctly for a piano action to function properly.
If you have any questions about pianos, please feel free to ask us. We are your piano tuning Wilmington DE experts. Kenneth Keith Piano services also serves the areas of Philadelphia, Eastern Shore MD and Southern NJ.
