Adjusting wippen assist springs

Mark Davidson mark.davidson@mindspring.com
Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:22:12 -0500


Sarah,

I don't disagree at all that pianists can feel this stuff.  And if you assume hammer speed is 1.75"/10mm = 4.45 rather than a
typical SWR of ~6 the leads become much more significant.  But I think it's too easy to look at a key that weighs 100-150g and a
hammer that weighs 10g and assume the key must have much more inertia.  One must also take into account the leverage/relative
motion.

The standard argument seems to be: if the SW and/or SWR is too high then we have to add more lead to the keys, and adding more lead
increases the inertia rendering the action too heavy.  I would argue that if the SW and/or SWR is too high, then the inertia is
already too high and the game is already lost - the lead is a much smaller factor than usually assumed.

Let the tomatoes fly.

-Mark


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