At 09:46 AM 8/28/96 -0400, you wrote: >Good morning Avery, > >Are you sure the springs are too strong? If they are lifting early that will >give an illusion of heavy touch. Try setting the timing on a few offenders and >see if that solves the problem. > >If you are going to reset the springs there is one way to do the job without a >gram guage. Remove the tray and turn it up side down and adjust the springs by >how far the levers hang. Observe and take into account the lead weights in the >levers. Alos some springs can be adjusted by adjusting how close the coil is >to the flange or the flange rail. By pulling the wire out of its hole weakens >the spring action by raising the coil relative to the long arm end of the >spring. > >The spring is an adjunct to the leads and the weight of the hammer heads and is >intended to introduce springyness to the sytem and help dampening by absorbing >energy through the spring. They are not intended to substitute for bad felt or >poor regulation. > >Good damping. > > Newton > nhunt@rci.rutgers.edu Greetings! My first foray into regulating grand dampers was about a month ago, on a Krakauer grand piano that is about 70 years old. After replacing the underkey felts, the dampers now lifted way too soon. The keyboard now felt very heavy, so I re-timed the dampers so that they lifted at the right time. There was a big improvement in the feel of the keyboard. I can heartily recommend the damper regulating device that Bill Spurlock designed. The plans are in a JOURNAL of just a few months ago, and the plans were easy to understand, and the tool works great. Thanks Bill! Newton, your last paragraph prompted me to write this... >They are not intended to substitute for bad felt or poor regulation.> After spending the afternoon timing and regulating the dampers, I made a big inprovement in the feel of the keyboard. And, some of the dampers that were allowing the strings to keep ringing on and on are now much quieter. But, overall, the dampers take a long time to stop the vibrations of the strings. How does one determine if the felt is bad and needs to be replaced? I am more than willing to accept the fact that this was my first time regulating grand dampers so I may not be an expert yet!!! But I was hoping for a much larger improvement. Any suggestions? Sincerely, David A. Vanderhoofven dkvander@clandjop.com Joplin, Missouri, USA Associate Member, Piano Technicians Guild web page: http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/ *****P.S.***** The web page is finally up again!
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