A request from Chile

[Farrell]

One way to begin to evaluate this would be to measure strike weight and see
where the setup falls on the Stanwood SW curves. Then add some weight (paper
clips) to the hammers and see if tone improves. If tone improves, clearly
you will not want to reduce hammer weight. If tone deteriorates quickly, you
might get away with some weight removal. He could also try switching around
a few hammers to evaluate going lighter before any (semi-)permanent changes
are made.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: <Bdshull@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: A request from Chile


> Hi, Susan,
>
> I agree, hammer weight reduction certainly does make a touchweight
> difference.  I have been doing this for 10 years myself, but at the cost
of
> tone.  If I can decide what hammer weight and touch weight I want at the
> outset, I have the most control of the results.  The Stanwood system
allows
> me to do this.  If Fernando likes the sound of his piano now, he will
> probably be disappointed if the strikeweight is reduced.
>
> Bill Shull, RPT
>
> In a message dated 1/7/02 4:03:58 PM Pacific Standard Time,
sckline@attbi.com
> writes:
>
> << At 06:05 PM 1/7/2002 -0300, you wrote:
>  >When I first played it, I found its action
>  >heavy. I asked in this list and received a lot of advise. With all this
>  >knowledgement I contacted an authorized Yamaha technician in Panama. He
came
>  >to my house in september 2000 and made a lot of friction reduction work.
>  >Actually, he was a very good technician. After that, I recognized a very
big
>  >change in the action weight. But not as much as I expected. Now I
believe
>  >that the action itself is heavier than actions I like. I've ever liked
light
>  >actions, since my hands are small. Furthermore, I'm not a professional
>  >pianist, so I don't want to develop big muscles in my hands.
>
>
>  Hello, Fernando
>
>  It seems that the friction work has been done, and your main complaint is
>  just the weight. Have you considered just reducing the hammer weight?
>  It is possible to taper the whole hammer, so only the strike point is
>  the full width. Also, you can sand the insides of the tails to take some
>  wood off. If the touch is still too heavy, you can trim some of the felt
>  off of the shoulders, leaving the tops of the hammer alone.
>
>  I did this on a Kawai grand (along with friction reduction) and found
>  the touch lightened a lot. The pianist seems happy with the results.
>
>  If the up-weight is high enough that the keys will return well even
>  with lighter hammers, maybe you could get what you wish this way. Of
>  course, if you went too far you'd have to replace the hammers.
>
>  Susan Kline
>   >>
>