Hi folks Just finished setting up an action today for hammer replacement. Yamaha C6. New origional Yamaha shanks going on with a set of Andres hand picked Wurzens from Renner. I always check shank strike weights now and this job illustrates nicely why its a good idea. The shank Strike weights showed a high of 2.06 grams and a low of 1.40 That works out to about 3.5 grams of static down weight at the key. The hammers themselves had a few big jumps here and there and started off at a mid medium curve with a nice bulge up to top medium in the mid treble and again in the mid high treble. All in all I could have ended up with a real interesting set of combined strike weights had I not spent the time matching shank sw's to hammer dead weights. I shudder to think of all the sets of hammers just plaskered onto randomly selected shanks without regard to touch weight at all. Grin... I shudder to even think of all the jobs I have done this way in the past. Just got a call the other day from a frantic fellow up north who'd just replaced a set of hammers and wondered why all of a sudden his touch weight was so much heavier.... and I have to wonder why this whole subject matter is not better dealt with in the various forms of piano education, testing proceedures, etc etc. Heck... even now the ptg test doesnt really cover this bit... even tho hammer changes on grands is about one of the most usual jobs for techs to start selling customers. Ah well... all in a days work. Hasnt been much basic Stanwood discussion for a while. Too bad really that he decided to burden the whole idea with patents instead of just selling finished products to techs that dont want to bother with it themselves. I have a feeling Touchweight Design would far more widespread then it is now had it just been public domain. Cheers RicB
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