Grand regulating

[Farrell]

Comments interspersed below:

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 3:40 AM
Subject: Re: Grand regulating

> Farrell wrote:
>
> > >   Many piano shops do not have a FLAT, SOLID regulating table (I'm
talking
> > near perfectly flat). If you do (and the piano has a flat keybed), you
can
> > come extremely close with the bench regulation. For me, I am not wasting
> > time. I am enjoying life. I do not often have fun in people's homes - I
work
> > hard there. I have fun in my shop - I also get a lot of work done
> > (sometimes).
> >
> It was one of the Fandrich boys who showed me the failing in this
thinking.
> Piano's do not generally have DEAD FLAT SOLID NO VARIATIONS  keybeds.

Oh, good. I thought you were going to tell me that I was "wasting time"
having fun while working!  ;-)

> Actually
> they differ quite a bit.... at least quite a bit in regards to doing very
very
> fine bench regulation and then expecting this to work in the piano.

Who in the world has said anything about FINE bench regulation. That is an
oxymoron, just like Militrary Intelligence. I get an action in the ballpark
on the bench. And yes, absolutely, they often do vary quite a bit from flat.
:-(
>
> If you first want to attempt fine bench regulation

I don't want to. I do however take an action that is way out in left field
and bring it pretty close to where I think I am going to want it.

> then you need to duplicate
> the keybed at the shop. Basically that means bedding the keyframe to the
piano,
> then bedding your bench to the keyframe. Dels brother (I believe ??) had
built
> just such a workbench and it worked just great.

Well, I have not seen/used Del's brother's bench, but I assume in is simply
a flat bench. But I think this would only work sometimes, when the front and
back rail area of the bench were reletively linear and parallel to one
another. If the front or back of the keybed are bent, cocked, or twisted
with reference to one another, I should think any fine tuning on the bench
would be futile.

I take my four-foot straight edge and level with me when I pick the action
up from the piano. I use it to very quickly check out the flatness of the
keybed. If the keybed looks real good, I'll go pretty far with the bench
regulation. If the keybed is clearly all screwed up, I won't bother with the
bench regulation beyond getting the hammer line so that the action slips
into the action cavity without breaking shanks.
>
> But then you run into this buisness of diminishing returns..
>
> I aggree with the Ron Shiflet that actually a letoff rack is not entirely
> neccessary for bench work. I have often enough eyeballed and rough
measured what
> I need for the bench, gotten it close enough so that an hours or sos worth
of
> work in the house results in a very nice regulated piano.

Different strokes, and all that. I very quickly set my little rack (one of
my few home-made jigs) to the measured string height at the ends of each
section. Then I clip a piece of thick calibrated veneer to the bar so that
it hangs down 1-3/4" (or whatever) to level the hammer line. Then I remove
the veneer and set letoff and drop on the two notes at each end of each
section. Then I use the little Spurlock letoff bar to do letoff on the
section, screw the adjustment screws down a turn or two and set drop in a
similar manner. I often leave the letoff rack in place for the section I am
working on. It enhances my spiritual fulfillfment while trying to make the
action work.

> I also like the
> customer to see a good deal of what I am up to... preferably explaining
some
> things as I go along.

Good point. Pretty cool to see their eyes pop out when they see all the
littly itty bitty parts in an action. The amazed customer will then say:
"And there are adjustments to do on all those little parts? Wow, you must
really know what you are doing!"
>
> I also aggree one hundred percent with Terry insisting on doing any
cleaning /
> refurbishing at the workshop. No sense dirtying up the home with all that
dust.

Maybe it is just because I am still a bit of a newbie, but I also like to
make that first pass at regulating the action on the bench (keeping in mind
that this is the never-before-serviced 80 year old action that you just
refurbished) so that I can see that my felt thicknesses are good, and that
the action is going to work when I put it in the piano. I may find there
will be more repairs, etc. at that point. Maybe only then do I find that the
rep lever center pins are super tight, or the rep springs are way screwed
up - I would rather address this in my shop (doggie and all) than in the
home, etc., etc.

I simply like to have an action ready for fine regulation when it goes into
the piano. With a 10 year old Yamaha, this time is when I initially sit down
at the piano. With an 87-year-old never-before-serviced 4' 9" Fisher grand,
this will be after 16 hours of refurbishing and bench regulation.
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway
> mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
>
>
>