Interesting damper regulation difference

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

At 09:52 AM 9/22/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>Is this a proper way to lighten an actions touch (i.e. after the fact, not 
>in the piano's design)?  I watch the PianoWorld forum, also, and that 
>seems to be a common request from pianists.
>John
>
>
>----------
>From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On 
>Behalf Of Piannaman@aol.com
>Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 11:46 PM
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Interesting damper regulation difference
>
>List,
>
>My last two jobs of the day were on nice, new German-built uprights.  One 
>is a Seiler 122, the other is a Wilh. Steinberg(probably 132 centimeters 
>tall).  Both are really nicely built upright pianos, with very well 
>regulated Renner-built actions.
>
>I found the touch on the Seiler to be on the heavy side, and not as 
>controllable as I'd like.  The cause was from the spoons contacting the 
>damper levers very shortly after the beginning of the keystroke.
>
>At the other end of the spectrum was the Steinberg.  The hammers were a 
>full 2/3 of the way to the string before the dampers began to lift.  The 
>action felt much lighter and far easier to control to me.  And legato 
>playing was no problem.
>
>I thought the philosophical differences in regulation might be of interest.
>
>Thanks for reading,
>
>Dave Stahl



You aren't actually lightening the touch, at least as measured by gram 
weights, since they ignore the dampers.  If you're doing a grand on the 
bench, they're entirely absent.

What you are doing is mostly changing duration.  The damper weight  per 
se,hasn't changed, but if you pick them up earlier, you are doing more work 
by lifting them higher/further from the string.   If you are working 
against a spring, as in uprights or a lot of grands, the further you push 
against a spring, the harder it pushes back.

Retarding the damper lift will lessen the work you do against the springs 
and gravity and the touch will seem lighter even though that gram weight 
test will be the same.   You DO, however, need to have good/new dampers to 
avoid not clearing the wedges.  With grands, either way, you'll have to 
reset the sostenudo/upstop rail, etc.

i.e. changing the hammer lift timing is NOT independent of other regulation 
steps.








Conrad Hoffsommer
I tried to get a life once, but they were all out of stock.