Hi Folks Im off for a welcome weekend in the hills hiking and fishing, drinking good wine and enjoying the Norwegian countryside. 60 + pianos in the first 12 days of the fall season, pluss finishing off and putting online my virtual capstan piano... I've decided to dub it the Magnetic Leverage Assisted Grand Piano Action. After two days of use it seems to work just dandy. Tho I will be anxious to hear about players comments that concern the dynamics of the action. Unassisted it has a top medium (ala Stanwood) hammer strikeweight curve, and front weights approximately 10 grams under his recommended maximums, and a BW of 56 grams. SWR hovers around 6.2 Assisted with the magnets the BW is 42. I left it heavy as the students all seemed to like it that way.... so basically I evened out the strike weights to a number 9 curve, evened out the frontweights, and let the magnets do the job that the existing assist springs were doing before. One thing I believe I've learned in all this, is that any of these counter balancing schemes are at best a way of cheating leverage. Especially when it comes to so called adjustable touchweight systems. Those are down right illusionary when it comes down to it me thinks.... tho no doubt easy to market. One question I'd like to get some thoughts on....How does lower leverage make an action with large amounts of mass in both hammers and keys really make a piano "feel" lighter then a higher leverage does. I mean... the mass amounts stay the same...inertia stays the same for same velocities..... I have my own thoughts for sure... but I would welcome any and all comments and observations. Have a good weekend folks. RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html
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