200a Sustain Pedal Standard Operation

[juniornoodle]

Hi all,

It'd been some years since I had to set up my sustain pedal but after my inner cable broke, I changed it out and put in a new spring. Since reassembling and reattaching the pedal, I can't get it to sustain notes. I watched a Vintage Vibe video on YouTube that was helpful but still can't get it, and the service manual has almost no information on how to set up the pedal correctly.

Right now I have it set up such that when I pull the ferrule up so the inner cable is taut, there's about 1/4" of movement and it extends outside the pedal stop housing by 1/4" inch.

If I don't pull the ferrule up, there's a bit of space between the sustain pedal cable stop and the metal pedal. It seems this is correct, otherwise the pedal cannot move downward to operate. Does that sound right?

When the pedal is not connected to the piano and I operate it with my hand, it seems to work exactly as I'd expect it to, however, when I operate it after connecting it to the piano, the pedal goes down and feels good, but the notes do not sustain. I am connecting the pedal by threading the ferrule in and getting the sustain pedal stop housing flush to the bottom of the keybed.

Does anyone have ideas on what I am doing wrong?

I'll have to try tomorrow to remove the lid and see how the pedal interacts with the dampers to see if that helps troubleshoot, but any ideas would be helpful!

Thanks!

[pianotuner steveo]

It sounds to me like the cable is a little too long. I doubt the issue is inside the piano.

[pianotuner steveo]

Where did you get the new cable? Is it specifically made for the pedal or did you use a bike cable?

[juniornoodle]

Thank you Steveo. After a little more work this morning, I got the sustain pedal to operate correctly when connected to the Wurli. It seems that the issue was not with the pedal but with the process of connecting it to the Wurli. I can't articulate what the issue is, but sometimes the connection doesn't take properly and sometimes it does, which I seem to remember from years back with this same piano...Odd.

The one exception to everything working now is that the D# and E just above middle C aren't sustaining when the pedal is depressed. I think I've seen some threads on certain notes not sustaining, so I will go investigate that now. In the meantime, if anyone has thoughts, please drop them here!

Thanks!

[juniornoodle]

Where did you get the new cable? Is it specifically made for the pedal or did you use a bike cable?

It sounds to me like the cable is a little too long. I doubt the issue is inside the piano.

I did get the cable from Vintage Vibe and ordered it an extra inch long (25" rather than 24"). To be honest, I ordered it long enough ago that I don't remember why I did that, but I trimmed it down a little. Is there a reason you think the cable might be too long?

[juniornoodle]

OK, I got this pedal up and running again. The best I can tell is that I needed to reduce the amount of slack the inner cable had between the metal pedal and and the cable stop (there should be basically no slack) and to connect the pedal to the piano a couple different times to get it to function properly.

Still not sure why the connection between the piano and pedal is finicky such that I need to do it multiple times, but I'll take it for now. I just hope I can replicate this pretty easily when taking the Wurli out for gigs.

[jupitervintagepianos]

Sounds like you fixed it up properly, but these pedals can be a pain sometimes.

As you said ideally you want a very small amount of lost motion when the pedal is connected, but over time as you press on the pedal the casing around the pedal becomes slacker, usually at the bottom. On many pianos I service I have to unscrew the base of the pedal and adjust the cable stop on the cable so that it is more taught. Sometimes if I adjust the cable stop too much then I will not need to fully screw the ferrule into the pedal mechanism, and there can be a 'sweet spot' to stop dampers openly sustaining when the ferrule is fully tightened.

In any case, tightening things that have become looser is generally the best way to go. Happy playing!