Greg writes: << Does anyone know of a jig that could be built that would accommodate trimming with the shanks on? >> I have one, home-built. It attaches to a tablesaw fence and allows a small carriage to travel back and forth, carrying a clamped hammer alongside the open blade. Though it is dangerous, (I have used it for many years and can still play a 10 note chord), it will allow hammers to be taken into the blade at a slight angle, which allows the tapering. I don't do this with the shanks on, but there could be an easy alteration that would allow it. (or if needed, and thank goodness it never has been, by tilting the saw blade, it can cut the extreme bevels on square grand hammers). I can think of an alternative, plausible approach you might consider. Use a belt sander to dimension the hammers. I would suggest this for several reasons; It is an easy way to remove weight, the time required would be less than building a jig, you can easily get a refined SW curve into the action, (alw ays a good thing), and you can repin the hammerline while you have them all off. With a repinned hammerline and even SW, it is fairly simple to plot a FW curve that will make this piano a spectacular playing instrument, and with a little bit of effort on the leading, you will have a great advertisement for your action work for years to come. Once you know what SW the action likes, you can gind the hammers to fit. A good SW is right there, just weighting to happen... All this should cost money, and I suggest that you make the customer aware that using "Genuine Steinway Parts" costs more because of all the time it takes to make them usable, especially in the older instruments they are not designed to fit. I am going to assume that you didn't get vintage, small hammers hung on 16 mm knuckle distance, so you have to address the entire reweighting and balancing of this action to a geometry and mass it was never built to handle. Regards, Regards, Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html <BR><BR><BR>**************<BR>It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here.<BR> (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)</HTML>
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