Hello all,  In response to Pete's posting that I received about the
Duo-Art Soft pedal.  Douglas Henderson is quite correct in stating that
the vacuum gets increased when the soft pedal comes on.  My previous
posting states the same.

This is mentioned in the manual but not explained too well.  If
you look at the picture diagrams of the soft pneumatic, you will find
a pallet valve on its side that opens once the pneumatic is closed.
This valve tees into the no. 2 Accompaniment pneumatic (or no. 1,
or is not used).

The manual explains this in about one sentence somewhere and the words
are more or less "... tubes to no. 2 acc. to compensate for lost motion
created by the hammer rail lift ..."  Pete and also Douglas are correct
in agreeing with me that this is a bit contradictory, because the lost
motion is what actually softens the piano.  I don't know why they did
it, but it is like that on every single Duo-Art piano (Export model and
American) that I have worked on.

Maybe the soft effect was too great on some pianos and notes might
have started skipping.  That is the only reason I can think of why they
would have done that.  I also agree that the soft effect is much
greater with this feature disabled.

To come back to the original question that started this thread, the
"Soft-Normal-Dance" lever does exactly the same.  It raises the hammer
rail and activates no. 2 (or no. 1) acc. pneumatic.  The 'Dance' position
of this lever normally activates the number 4 acc. pneumatic.

One other thing I would like add to this is about the grand keyboard
shift.  It is usually not used for prolonged activation because the
hammers play only 2 strings.  This eventually makes the imprints in the
hammers deeper on those 2 strings and causes uneven hammer wear.  It
also does not work too well in the bass section.  That is why the
Duo-Art pianos should have both systems or just a hammer rail like an
upright piano.

Kind regards,

Bernt Damm
Cape Town