I have an old Wagner upright piano with an Herrburbger-Brooks action. I am in the middle of replacing the tapes and the jack cushioning felt pieces on the hammer butts. Now and again I put the action back in the piano to see how it looks and sounds so-far.
It seems that most of the hammers are not centered on their strings when they strike. The frame for the action is rigid and does not allow left-right adjustment as far as I can observe, and I am now wondering if the action came from another piano. (I bought the piano from a girls school, and it was one of several being sold.)
Hammers not centered on strings on old upright
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Barrie Heaton
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Gill the Piano
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Thanks for the replies and information, Barrie and Gill. Yes, I had the hammers and levers out for replacing the tapes.
I wondered if the hammers landing points could be adjusted by loosening each hammer's fastening screw and moving it left or right, but the rail (hammer rail beam?) where they attach has a step which mates with a notch in each hammer's flange, and the amount of adjustment possible looks to my inexperiened eye to be nearly zero. I suppose putting paper shim strips under one side or the other of the flange would push against the adjacent flange and push the hammer with the loosened screw away from the adjacent flange. That is going to be some job to adjust all the straying hammers!
I've been reading on the Internet that hammer shanks can be slightly bent by heating followed by pressing in the desired direction. If that can be done, I suppose I'd have to be careful not to twist the hammer out of perpendicular with the strings in the same way that I expressed concern about shimming with paper strips. There would also be the matter of setting the piano on fire.
One other bit of evidence, if I get my eye down to look along the keys toward the levers (whiffens?) it seems that they also meet a little too much to the treble side, and this also makes me wonder if the action was taken from another piano and put in this one.
The action is supported between two vertical pieces of wood that slip into locating dowels on the piano itself. The horizontal wood piece (hammer rail beam?) which has the screw holes for the hammers and the levers is held to those vertical pieces by two wood screws on each end and is very sturdy. There are also scoring marks made by a blade on the horizontal piece next to the vertical pieces as if to guide the original drilling of the holds for the securing screws.
I wonder if I should make measurements of how far out the hammers in general are, and then move that horizontal piece left a bit and then make the screw holes oval and stuff wood splints on their right sides to hold the screws in the new slightly-more-to-the-treble position.
I think I now understand why the man at the local piano shop rolled his eyes when I said I was going to replace the tapes on my old piano!
I wondered if the hammers landing points could be adjusted by loosening each hammer's fastening screw and moving it left or right, but the rail (hammer rail beam?) where they attach has a step which mates with a notch in each hammer's flange, and the amount of adjustment possible looks to my inexperiened eye to be nearly zero. I suppose putting paper shim strips under one side or the other of the flange would push against the adjacent flange and push the hammer with the loosened screw away from the adjacent flange. That is going to be some job to adjust all the straying hammers!
I've been reading on the Internet that hammer shanks can be slightly bent by heating followed by pressing in the desired direction. If that can be done, I suppose I'd have to be careful not to twist the hammer out of perpendicular with the strings in the same way that I expressed concern about shimming with paper strips. There would also be the matter of setting the piano on fire.
One other bit of evidence, if I get my eye down to look along the keys toward the levers (whiffens?) it seems that they also meet a little too much to the treble side, and this also makes me wonder if the action was taken from another piano and put in this one.
The action is supported between two vertical pieces of wood that slip into locating dowels on the piano itself. The horizontal wood piece (hammer rail beam?) which has the screw holes for the hammers and the levers is held to those vertical pieces by two wood screws on each end and is very sturdy. There are also scoring marks made by a blade on the horizontal piece next to the vertical pieces as if to guide the original drilling of the holds for the securing screws.
I wonder if I should make measurements of how far out the hammers in general are, and then move that horizontal piece left a bit and then make the screw holes oval and stuff wood splints on their right sides to hold the screws in the new slightly-more-to-the-treble position.
I think I now understand why the man at the local piano shop rolled his eyes when I said I was going to replace the tapes on my old piano!
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Gill the Piano
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Aaaaaaaaaargh! No, don't fiddle! 
Pianos rarely undergo heart transplants - even two adjacent pianos from the production line won't have completely interchangeable actions without adjustment.
Get yourself a Reblitz book (there's one on eBay at the moment)and take all its advice. It's in american, but you should be able to make it out all right - it's about the clearest instruction book on reconditioning pianos you can get.
Good luck!
Pianos rarely undergo heart transplants - even two adjacent pianos from the production line won't have completely interchangeable actions without adjustment.Get yourself a Reblitz book (there's one on eBay at the moment)and take all its advice. It's in american, but you should be able to make it out all right - it's about the clearest instruction book on reconditioning pianos you can get.
Good luck!
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Barrie Heaton
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Take the hammers off again depending if you left or right hand if you are right handed start at the top treble and put one hammer on at a time and space as you go along some odd action were a tit fit - if you have had the Hammer off for a wile and in a damp area the flange will swell up a tad just enough to make spacing a painTomF wrote:
I wonder if I should make measurements of how far out the hammers in general are, and then move that horizontal piece left a bit and then make the screw holes oval and stuff wood splints on their right sides to hold the screws in the new slightly-more-to-the-treble position.
I would do a Jill says get the book or a sympathetic tuner who will help you sort it out
Have fun hope you have plenty of hair
Barrie,
Barrie Heaton
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