Avery Todd wrote: > Hi Del, > > Dare I ask you to explain this one further? :-) Or is that included > in the Action Power article? Yes it is. > Are you saying that spruce is NOT better because it's stiffer? Just > curious. Where did this idea come from? I like spruce keys. I also like sugar pine keys. I remain unconvinced about bass wood although some like it because it machines so nicely. (Sound familiar?) The question originally came up when I asked Kluge for quotes on some keysets I had designed for a 190 cm grand in which I had drawn in a maple bottom plate. Kluge would/could not make them and stated that there was no demand for keys to be made that way and that none of the (mostly German) manufacturers they made keys for wanted bottom plates. They should. I thought -- still do -- that a 22 to 23 mm key body made of whatever material was not stiff enough without some sort of bottom plate. We ended up having to take the keys without the bottom plate and, guess what? They lacked the requisite stiffness. Overly flexible keys are one of the major limiting factors in transferring energy from the pianists fingers to the string. Del
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