action clicks

[Sylvia]

Anyone know how to quiet them without re-riveting or replacing the action?

[carl-swanson]

If the action is clicking, then it means that the rivets that hold everything in the action together and the holes they are in are worn and need to be replaced. There is nothing that you can do to quiet the clicking short of overhauling the action.

[Alison]

Could it be simply that the plastic/synthetic bushes are worn, like little washers.

[catherine-rogers]

The usual fix is not to replace the action but to repair it by re-riveting, unless that’s already been done. I don’t think you can re-rivet a second time because the rivet holes can be only so large before you run out of space on the linkage. In that case, probably the action would be replaced. But Carl is the expert and could tell you for sure. I don’t know who works on Aoyamas.

[carl-swanson]

Reriveting an action involves completely disassembling the action, punching out the worn rivets, reaming out the holes in the linkage to a slightly larger size to make them round again, and installing new rivets. That’s the short explanation.

There are two reasons to increase the hole size as little as possible. One is that it will hopefully leave plenty of material on the link so that someday the harp can be reriveted again. The other reason is that larger rivets wear quicker than smaller ones. The larger the rivet size, the quicker it will wear out again. This is because of the increased surface area.

Having reriveted many actions over the years, I have been appalled at the rivet sizes that were used on actions by some other technicians when the harp had previously been reriveted. Let me give you and example. Lyon & Healy has always used a rivet size of .075(seventy five thousands of an inch) for the larger rivets in it’s actions, and .063 for the smaller ones in the treble end of the action. When I rerivet an action that has never been reriveted before, I can usually get away with an increase of about .006(six thousands of an inch) to get the hole round again. So the increase is from .075 to .081. But many times I have opened up an action to find rivets that are .096 or larger. I know for certain that it was not necessary to use such large rivets to correct the problem. But at least one technician who I knew well told me that he always used .096 rivets when he reriveted an action, regardless of the size of the original rivets. “I know they wear out faster,” he told me. “I just like working with them.” I was dumbfounded.

A particular problem are the Lyon & Healy harps built between 1958 and 1981, which had teflon in the action. The rivet size was still .075, but because of the teflon donut surrounding the rivet, the hole in the link had to be drilled to .103. So removing the teflon from these actions usually means installing a .103 or larger rivet. I have come up with a system for dealing with these teflon actions, and also actions that are “riveted out” that allows me to use a replacement rivet of .0625, which is the size that Wurlitzer used. Because of this smaller rivet size, Wurlitzer actions last much MUCH longer before needing reriveting. It was exactly for that reason that I used the same size rivet in my Swanson harps.

I don’t think there is any particular problem in reriveting an Aoyama harp. The only harps where you never rerivet the action and instead replace it are Salvis.

[patricia-jaeger]

Sylvia, I don’t know what area of the U.S. you and your Aoyama harp are in, but I do know a good technician in Vancouver Washington who trained at the Aoyama factory. Type Robert E. Hohlbauch into your search engine and you will find his phone number among the first few posts. Years ago I drove there to have work done on my harp, stayed at a motel and picked my repaired harp up the next day. See if you can describe your problem on the phone to him at least; he’s very good, and reasonable.

[Sylvia]

Robert answered me and said Aoyamas don’t ever need re-riveting (Hah).

[Sylvia]

I was able to contact the distributor, Wynns, and the guy will be in my area Wed. or Thur. and bring the Viscotene!

[Sylvia]

He brought the Viscotene this afternoon, right to my door.

[carl-swanson]

Do you spray it on? Or apply it with a palate knife? The thing about worn riveting is that, when the action is clicky, the problem can be one rivet in the main action or all the rivets in the whole mechanism, and both will sound the same. So if you put it on a few rivets, things will not get better until you deal with all the rivets that are clicking. It’s hard to believe that this stuff will stop the clicking, and that it won’t cause the action, over time, to become sluggish. But let me know how it turns out.

I should mention too that it’s possible for clicks to come from the pedal couplers if they are loose on the rods, or from the pedal fulcrums if things are loose there. There are a lot of moving parts on a harp, and any one of them can be the source of the clicking you are hearing.

[Sylvia]

According to the Aoyama tech, the Japanese spray it on (it has a little tube you stick on).

[carl-swanson]

Sylvia- The trick is going to be to get this stuff on the rivets in the main action, which may be where most if not all the clicks are coming from. In fact, it could be one particular rivet in the main action(in each line) that is the problem. The main action is difficult to reach. Let me know how this works out. I’ve never heard of fixing worn rivets in this way and to be honest i have my doubts.

[kreig-kitts]

Just as an FYI here is the link to the product information sheet. It’s a

[carl-swanson]

Kreig- Thanks for that. I’m still worried that this stuff could gum up the action so that it eventually moves like a freight elevator. That can happen, and very often does, on old actions that are lubricated with standard lubricants that have dried up. And of course, eventually this stuff will do the same thing. Also, in order for this stuff to work, it has to creep into the joint between the rivet and the hole wall, and that’s very hard to accomplish unless this stuff is very liquid when you first put it on. But what the heck. If someone wants to try it, let’s see what happens. I’ll be very curious to hear about the results.

[Sylvia]

I haven’t put any on yet…got to wait till the spirit moves me.

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