Touch weight

[btrout@desupernet.net]

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Hi Rogerio,

I can appreciate your situation.  You've done everything 'by the book'
but the touchweight is too heavy.

There are several ways to deal with this.  It sounds like you've already
addressed things like proper resistance in the flanges, polishing of
capstans, key bushings, etc.

You could put lead weights in the keys.  That would reduce the
touchweight.  Unfortunately, in doing so, you can add to inertia
problems as I've seen many times where the action becomes slow and
unresponsive.  The keys can become too heavy to change direction and
velocity rapidly.  I've seen some keyboards with as many as 6 or 7 large
weights in the front of those keys.  I haven't seen any with that kind
of weighting play nicely.  It may have the 'correct touchweight, but
it'll play like a 'Mack Truck'!  Steinways are famous for this (in my
opinion).

Another way you may want to try is to lighten the hammers.  Are you a
good hammer filer?  I've done this on several occasions and it works!
There's a lot of felt on most of the hammers you can buy today.  I think
most of the sets I've ordered, regardless where they were from, were
larger than they needed to be.  One thing you'll have in your favor is
the way the action geometry will affect how much felt you'll need to
remove.  If the hammer travels 1 7/8 in, while the key travels 3/8 in.,
that's a ratio of 5 to 1.  If you remove aprox. 2 oz. of weight from the
hammer, you'll remove aprox. 10 oz. of touchweight.  Depending upon how
well the action is weighted now, and upon how even you file those
hammers, you may need to do some work with the key weights to even out
the touchweight.

It's just some of my thoughts.  I've seen what happens when too many
weights are indiscriminately added to the keys just to improve the
touchweight.  Lets just say I wouldn't want to have to play it!

Just some food for thought.  Think it through before you do anything.
Sometimes it can be costly to change your mind.

Good luck,

Brian Trout
Quarryville, Pa

Rogerio Cunha wrote:

>  To the listI am just working on a grand ( Bösendorfer ) and on it I
> applied new hammers ( original ) , new center pins, and others items
> as knuckles, etc, etc,All the material applied is original and all the
> work was made with care and the final product was very, very good
> except the touch weight.I did all that I learned and read but wasn't
> possible to obtain 52 g on the 1st section, 50 g on the 2nd section
> and 48 g on the 3rd and 4th section and this is the problem that I
> want to know. ( these are manufacturer measurements)The difference is
> about +10 g on each section.What to do?I think that the only way would
> be to put leads on the keys. Is this correct?To use the piano with +
> 10g of touch weight is good?If isn't possible to obtain the
> manufacturer measurements what are the good touch weight?I thanks to
> allROGERIO CUNHA - IC MEMBER OF THE GUILD



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