Rigid shank (was Scruffing -was etc.)

[Stéphane Collin]

Hello Ric.

I agree totally on what you say here.  I ended up finding that impact noise 
control (shanks, punchings and voicing) together with accurate strike point 
distance can make or destroy the magic (sorry for the word) of a piano 
sound.
Do you think there is a reason to believe that more rigid shanks are 
desirable ?  Of course, one can not consider this parameter apart from all 
the others.  But yet...

Best regards.

Stéphane Collin.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RicB" <ricb at pianostemmer.no>
To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 6:02 PM
Subject: Scruffing -was - Over-Strike vs Under-Strike


> Hi Marcel
>
> It strikes me that the whole scope of impact noises is probably one of the 
> most overlooked and underestimated bits of what the overall sound of the 
> instrument ends up being.  We have this tendency to focus on the sound the 
> strings make and get all hung up in that. To the point that many find it 
> down right difficult if not impossible to understand how one or another of 
> the many impact noises actually can influence piano tone.  But they do... 
> big time.  Going to a more rigid shank will of course have a price.  I'm 
> not saying you cant make it work... I'm just saying you probably cant just 
> count on it being a good thing without further ado.
>
> Cheers
>
> RicB
>
>
>    I think there has to be some kink of balance. I remember old uprights
>    with cedar shanks in the treble section. When I replaced some of these
>    broken shanks with maple ones, the tone would get ugly. Mind you these
>    hammers were tapered a lot and were very light, but there must be a
>    reason why the cedar shanks produced such a good tone compared with
>    maple ones.
>
>    There is so much that happens when the hammer hit the strings that we
>    don't know. It's a very complex system and we only can try different
>    things, but going to just a more rigid shank might not solve all our
>    problems.
>
>    Marcel Carey, RPT
>    Sherbrooke, QC
>
>