Action Weight Troubles

[Farrell]

Hi List. I have a 1920s Baldwin R (nice piano) with an erratic action
(touchweight). (Before I flamed, briefly, the owner is an elderly
accomplished female pianist with VERY weak - diseased - hands - she wishes
for the action to border on being ridiculously light.) I refurbished the
wippens, rebushed the keys (Spurloc system) and installed new keypins (both
rails). Installed new Abel light hammers, shanks & flanges from Wally
Brooks. All flanges are in the 2 to 3 gram resistance range, and keys - when
balanced with weights - will complete their full travel under the weight of
two grams or less (zippo friction).

The problem is that I have measured downweights (DW) as low as 38 grams on
several keys and as high as 50 - 54 on several keys (most range throughout
the 40s grams). Only a few upweights (UW) are as low as 19 or 20 grams, and
most are in the mid and upper 20 grams (the heavier keys even range up to 35
grams UW). My frictions (F) (generally real light - I know) generally range
from 8.5 to 11.0 grams.

While pondering what might be causing such erratic DW, I remembered that
while balancing the keys (while measuring bushing friction), I noticed that
the weights going from key to key varied by several grams often. So I
calculated a Key Balance Weight (KBW) (weight required to balance key at
front of key with stack on) by subtracting the friction value from the DW
(or adding F to UW - same thing). Now being that the hammer weight changes
progress slow across the keyboard, and capstan placement varies only
slightly but evenly across the keyboard, I see that KBWs vary by up to 14
grams within one octave!

I think the keys are weighted very unevenly and that is a major cause of my
erratic DW & UW. I think the keys need to be re-weighed. Old leads should be
removed, plugged, and new installed. Also, the key leads range from 5 in
each bass key to 1 in all treble. Renner recommends that 4 leads in bass
ranging to 0 in treble is often best, if the keys will work well with that
configuration. Especially considering that my client wants an almost
effortless action (minimize inertia also - within reasonable limits), I
think I need to remove old leads, plug holes, reweigh and install a new,
minimal number of leads.

Any thoughts?

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com