Double Tone Bar mounting springs

[tonejunkie]

I am refurbing a rhodes.  Part of this is replacing the tone bar grommets and I noticed tonight that many of the tone bars have two springs put together seemingly randomly on some of the tone bars. When I look on this forum I see that the springs are color coded but there is no mention of doubling up springs.  Any comments on this would be great.  Thanks

[pianotuner steveo]

Im guessing it was either an accident or someone put them there thinking it would help with some problem they had. You should only need one per screw.

Or...they didnt have the right color and used two thinner ones to make a heavy one?

[sean]

I also think that the double springs may have been put there because the factory guy was in a hurry or frustrated.

If you put a bunch of the springs in a cup or any storage bin, then some of them always like to snuggle up together and occasionally they are a pain to separate with your fingers.

I bet the assembler just said "Forget it, you springs are going in there together."

(My method of separating the springs is to throw them against the wall a few times; usually they will come loose from each other, and sometimes I can find them both under the workbench.)

sean

[jim]

I don't think it was an accident or lazyness, i've seen this on pretty much every piano i've worked on, it would be harder to get two springs around the grommet than to seperate them I reckon,
I think it's just a problem solve for poor sustain.

[Tim Hodges]

I don't think it was an accident or lazyness, i've seen this on pretty much every piano i've worked on, it would be harder to get two springs around the grommet than to seperate them I reckon,
I think it's just a problem solve for poor sustain.

Hit the nail right on the head, I've seen it before and it was considered to be a factory remedy for the lower register of the keyboard. To be honest I think with some fiddling about you could remedy the original problem but of course the techs in CA obviously didn't have the time on the production line.

[tonejunkie]

I feel like I am getting mixed messages here.  Should I just have one spring per screw or should I leave the "factory fix" .  Thanks for all the help guys.

[Ben Bove]

As far as I've seen it, it was a quick fix for problems in the bass register.  It always exists in the lower register, and as far as I can remember always on the outer-most spring.

If you install a 2-springer with one spring only, you'll probably notice one of two things happening:

1) The long tine oscillates outside of the pickup range to the left and right instead of straight up and down (so when you hit and hold a note, the volume fades in and out).

2) Reduced sustain

Obviously by design there's only supposed to be 1 spring but the note probably sounds better with 2.  The only real fix first off is to make sure the grommets are good, and to swap out the tine to compare.  But more often than not, I leave it.

[pianotuner steveo]

Id be interested to look inside mine someday and see if this was done in the bass on this model....