The dampers on this 1901 Steinway B weren’t quite right. The spacing was off, they weren’t lifting uniformly with the pedal, and a lot of them traveled with anything but uniform upwards motion. Let’s fix it!
The first step after all the dampers have been removed is to service the damper tray. These underlevers are glued on instead of the more modern screw design, so we broke off all the ones whose glue had significantly degraded over 100+ years of use and re-glued them.
After the glue dried and the tray was back in we adjusted the bends in the damper wire until they fit properly in the underlevers and on the strings. These bends are very sensitive and take a lot of trial, error, and readjustment to get just right.
Once the dampers are seated properly the depth of the wire in the underlever is adjusted until they all lift perfectly with the pedal. The action is put back in and every note tested to make sure it dampens as fully and immediately as possible, making small adjustments as necessary to achieve this.
Now this piano functions and plays just as beautifully as it looks!
Written by our shop technician Adeline Bouwhuis