Keyboard touch

[A440A@aol.com]

<<  He has carpel tunnel, is complaining about the "heavy" touch.   it 
averages 55 grams +.  
  There does not seem to be excess friction in any of the action parts. It is 
my opinion that the hammers are too heavy. I bought a gram scale so that I 
could maybe achieve some consistency in the wood removal. My neighbor has a band 
saw,!
 and I
 have a disk sander. I think I could do the wood removal, measuring the 
weight as I go. Having never done this job before, what advice can you give me? >>

Greetings, 
    Get Stanwood's strikeweight charts, measure the SW on the hammers as per 
instructions, and then take them down to the lower end of the scale.  You may 
want to take a treble hammer that matches the low weight desired and put it on 
a lower note to see how much weight you need to take off to hit your target. 
   The "weight" that a player perceives is not only the physical resistance 
in the key, but also, the amount of brilliance in the sound.  The brain puts 
these two factors, (touch and sound) together to come up with its idea of 
'response', ie.  I have lacquered hammers before and the owner definitely noticed 
how much "lighter" the action was.  I have also done a major needling job on a 
set of hammers and gotten a complaint that the action was too heavy, all of a 
sudden.  
Good luck, 



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html