replacing a Bluthner action

[Richard Brekne]

Don wrote:

>Hi Richard,
>
>My understanding was that the magnetic action was one step further than
>Stanwoodization. I.e. Stanwood *plus* more.
>
>  
>

Hmm... I dont think so really. Lets see ... David himself offers a 
magnetic alternative to whippen assist springs, but beyond that there is 
no one who directly employs a Stanwood like action balancing process. I 
guess the closest thing to it is the pattern leading you see from some 
few manufactures combined with a dead weight hammer mass spec.  Still 
this is a few steps back from a full fledged Stanwood balancing. They 
dont even use his equation of balance, but rather something more akin to 
the Pfieffer calculation. Refining usually is done by removing key lead 
mass until static DW conforms, but in the case of whippen assist or 
Seilers (and others) magnetic assists this is done by adjusting the 
strength of the assist mechanisim.

Whippen assists actions have shown themselves to be successful enough, 
but not well enough accepted by those pianists selecting high 
performance instruments. Most magnetic configurations are very similiar 
in the end.

I am opposed to using any assist mechanisim to compensate for more then 
a 1-2 grams variance in a pre-determined BW specification. Thats all a 
discussion in itself really, so I wont go off in that direction here 
beyond to say that I think its best to find a good  BW Ratio 
specification and BW spec and execute that as accurately as possible. 
This means using either Stanwoods equation or something similiar.

Basic Stanwood is simply balancing hammer weight to key counter weight 
using some variant of simple balance math.  As opposed to traditional 
balancing methods you could kind of  say Stanwood is BW priority and 
traditional is DW priority.  The former points clearly to variances in 
ratio accross the keyboard, the latter attempts to compensate for them.

Cheers
RicB