Over the past few months some of the keys on my piano have sunk. Not by much, but it is visibly noticeable, and seeing how it's at the very extreme ends of the keyboard, not much of an interference with playing.

Some backstory. Several years ago I had a bad infestation of moths and they had gotten into the piano. (Moth eggs come in the house via the birdseed for my lovebirds.) My piano tech came by with a special chemical which he used to treat the felts. I had to have that room shut closed for a couple of days, irrc. That appeared to solve the problem.

When I pulled the action out a few months ago to see if I could find an answer to the sinking keys, I discovered that the felt punchings on the balance rail were completely deteriorated under some keys... the ones that were sunk. And they had the telltale gritty appearance of moth damage. It seems that when he treated the felts these got missed. Which makes sense because they really are out of the way and almost completely obscured by the keys.

So when my tech was here a few weeks ago to tune, I asked him what he thought about me tackling the job of replacing the balance rail punchings myself, whether there were some special tools I would need, any esoteric knowledge, etc. He was all for it, given that he's extremely busy, and said he would tell me what to do. Great, I can save a few bucks.

I haven't talked with him since, but I found a lot of information online and took delivery of some felt balance rail punchings yesterday. I'm doing it! I'm not replacing the paper punchings and hoping that those will continue to keep everything lined up once the felts are replaced (though I have my doubts). If I need to re-level the keys, so be it. My tech said he'd give me the tools I needed, so if it needs to be done I'll ask to borrow his key alignment tool (nifty gizmo! but at $60 I don't want to get one for a single time use).

I'm loving this! I love the sense of empowerment, and I love losing some of the mystery that exists regarding the action. After all, it's not rocket science.

Good for you!

Bernard, that's really cool!!

I haven't ever even removed the action by myself, so you're way ahead of me!

Go for it and report back.
I want to know more about what is going on in there myself.

Bernard, that’s so cool! But of course you can do it. You re-work your own treadle sewing machine.

Good luck! Things may settle a bit and you may find the need to add or remove paper punchings to get them all level.

Wow. I am impressed.

Now I'm also worried. Suddenly we have little moths fluttering out of a couple of our kitchen cabinets where we have food stored. How do we get rid of them? Could they get into the piano?

I've had moth damage to carpets and clothing but It never occurred to me that pianos were also vulnerable.

Glad to hear that you've addressed the problem with your piano.

Big Al

quote:

Suddenly we have little moths fluttering out of a couple of our kitchen cabinets where we have food stored. How do we get rid of them?

Pantry moths vs clothes moths:

https://www.moth-prevention.co...ths-vs-clothes-moths

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
Wow. I am impressed.

Now I'm also worried. Suddenly we have little moths fluttering out of a couple of our kitchen cabinets where we have food stored. How do we get rid of them? Could they get into the piano?

I'm actually confused about which type of moth laid eggs in the piano felts. They are the same ones that infested some wool yarn I had. They look like the ones that hatch from the bird seed, but everything I've read says pantry moths lay their eggs in grains and seeds.

At any rate, I don't know what my tech used to treat the moths with but it was strong. It kills the eggs.

This summer, for a month or two, the bird seed was coming with weevils! LOL.

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Good luck! Things may settle a bit and you may find the need to add or remove paper punchings to get them all level.

Thanks, rontuner. I put it all back together today. I'd say it is 99.99% level. There is one key in the very upper register that is the tiniest bit higher but ever so slight. I can live with it for now, don't get up there too often anyway. When I get a chance I'll open it all up again and futz with the papers for that key. I'm not surprised, because I found 2 papers hanging around when I was working on that area and had to guess which key they came from! I didn't guess correctly.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
Bernard, that's really cool!!

I haven't ever even removed the action by myself, so you're way ahead of me!

If and when you get around to it, here's a little tip I learned from experience: Make sure your inner arm is not pressing down on the keys at either end of the keyboard when you give it a good tug. I snapped one of the hammers in the upper octave last year doing that! Luckily, I was given great, detailed instructions on how to repair it. The repair came out great.

Between mice and months, I've come across a number of pianos where the felts under the keys were almost completely gone...

That and having the space under the keys packed with kibble... mice stashing for the lean times?!?

Years ago, I had a famous client who didn't like keeping her piano in the house. She kept it in her barn. Every time she had a party or special event, we had to move it, clean it and tune it. The mousies loved having a custom pyramid mahogany Bosie to live in. We were constantly replacing anything felt.
When she died, a friend of mine bought it and had to do a complete restoration.

To those of you who didn't already know the story,.. it was Elizabeth Taylor.