wurlitzer 200 responsiveness of action

[dpmusic]

I've spent a fair bit of time combing this site and getting some great info. But I still wanted to ask for anyone's opinion on how to make the action more responsive. I suffer from some repetitive strain injury, and over the years I've developed a technique that is super light. so I am interested in tuning the action to be as responsive as possible.

What I've done so far- complete disassembly, lubed and replaced key bushings and made sure that each key is moving completely freely on the pins. Removed each whip assembly and replaced springs, lubricated joints with pro tek. Also lubricated hammer joints. Key height and dip didn't seem to need much adjusting. Replaced damper grommets (had them so I thought what the hell). Then I went through and did lost motion adjustment, and that now seems ok. Next, let off, got each hammer approx 1/8" from reed.

But still I feel I have to overcome a fair amount of resistance to sound a key. Probably what most would consider normal, but for me it would be great to have the low end of the dynamic range be available with as little effort as possible. I would ideally like to be able to press the key very softly and have a sound. As it is, if I press very softly the hammer doesn't contact the reed (often). There seems to be quite a bit of pressure needed (relatively speaking) to cause the hammer to hit the reed.

I wondered about raising the "at rest" level of the hammers, to have them starting from a higher point. The problem seems to occur at the very beginning of the keystroke, the initial inertia required to launch the hammer. What about lubricating the felt under the hammer that the fly pushes on? Or perhaps replacing that felt? I imagine that if that part of the mechanism were a bit slipperier that would somehow address it. But I know nothing really, so, not sure.

Anyway, that's my sob story, thanks for reading. Other than that, having a great time with this amazing instrument. any comments welcome.

[Jenzz]

Hi :-)

Remember that you will allways need some force to lift up the damper arm. The damper arm is spring-loaded, so maybe you could reduce the tension there a bit. The drawback of this is that the damping itself will be not that instand / accurate as before.

Jenzz

[dpmusic]

A great suggestion, I will look into that. Thank you.

[pianotuner steveo]

It still sounds like a Letoff issue to me. If you press the key slowly, does the hammer rise, then fall without touching the Reed, or does it just rise and stay there? You also may have taken away too much lost motion.

[Electrickey]

You might want to engage the services of a trained piano tuner. Someone who trained in Europe at the best piano makers. They know how to finagle the workings of a piano to possibly get what you want. I had my 200A overhauled by one such technician and he did things to the action I would never know how to do. Like make it so pounding the keys would save the reeds.