I have successfully managed to refurbish the lower manual of my Hammond T202 that had some keys with 3mm sideways play in them. Someone had obviously been practising their palming technique! I thought I would share it with the forum as there are quite a few spinet owners on here. You need to expect a little bit of movement and I can tell the difference with my ex-church L122 which hasn't been palmed!</P>
I removed the key channels and separated the keys so that they could soak in detergent. I replaced the key channels only so that I could check each one for play. I noticed that where the end of the key channelsits up under the keycomb felt there was play on certain keys due to the fact that the felt was not it's original width BUT in front of the key channel where the felt had never been rubbed it was still the correct width. The felt pads are very hard and tough. Each one is riveted in place so changing the felt would be a last resort. I know that you can get replacement keycombs for the consoles at $40 each (you would need ten of them!) but I have not seen them for sale for spinets. At $40 an octave it would probably not be cost effective for the cheaper spinet.</P>
To solve the problem I removed the keycombs one at a time. I drilled new holes in the manual chassis immediately behind the original keycomb fixing holes and created slots. This allowed me to slide the combs back about 4mm which meant the wider felt was now guiding the channels. On a couple of extreme cases I gently squeezed the channel with some plumbers grips to close the gap slightly. I now have a "like new" feel to the manual with the same lateral movement as my 1 yr old Yamaha.</P>
I will post pictures on my gallery as soon as I finish the upper manual.</P>
I hope this will be of some help to a few people. </P>
Cheers</P>
Dave</P>
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