[CAUT] Erard piano

[Israel Stein]

At 11:00 AM 5/29/2006, you wrote:
>Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 12:47:07 -0400
>Reply-To: College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>
>Message-ID: <8C85156A8149A47-1454-A572 at FWM-D08.sysops.aol.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>Subject: [CAUT] Erard piano
>Message: 5
>
>On "ask the experts", I got the following question from a piano 
>player. The guy's in Itally. I told him hammer blow is 45mm, and key 
>dip is 10mm. But he claims that the Erards are differnt, and that 
>hammer blow needs to be much more. Anyone with any experience with 
>Erard pianos?

Wim,

Tell your guy that there is no way that he is going to be able to 
regulate that piano "by the book". They kept their original action 
design right into the nineteen teens at least (I remember working on 
a 1911 Erard action which wasn't much different from the 1850's 
actions). The design is the same, but there is much variability from 
piano to piano - how precise do you think can dimensions be when you 
are dealing with rails mounted on wooden brackets and it is all over 
100 years old, and every time you take it apart and put it together 
the relationships change slightly, because there is no way the thing 
comes together the same way twice?

The strike distance on the old Erard action could be as long as 2 1/8 
in. (54 mm) with a relatively shallow key dip. In practice, you just 
have to figure it out.

Israel Stein