Moment of Inertia of grand action parts.

[Paul Chick]

Hello Ron,

Thanks for the reply.  I was talking about this subject with my father
yesterday and we talked about pretty much the same thing that you wrote in
your post.  Is it possible to go through Stanwood's Touchweight
calculations, come up with good numbers and still have an action with high
inertia?  And, is it true that an action with high inertia will still
function correctly (the pianist just has amazing, like Popeye, strength)?

>Is it so that this basic geometry is relatively the same for any action
>(grands) of the same size piano? Or possibly of all (grand) pianos?
>
>Paul Chick.

Hi Paul,
Relatively, in principal. The same sort of juggling of ratios and weights
to find something that meets your requirements from what you have to work
with and available parts applies to everything, and everyone seems to have
a slightly different set of priorities and approaches. It's like scaling or
anything else. You find the particular set of cumulative compromises that
seem to you to be the best alternative under the circumstances. Or you can
design and build a whole new action for each piano with a different set of
cumulative compromises that seem to you to be the best alternative under
the circumstances. We try to get far enough into the realm of diminishing
returns that humans can't tell the difference between our intentions, and
our results. Defining our intentions to meet all user requirements is the
impossible part. The rest is just mechanics.

Ron N