S&S D with high strings/low action stack

[Andrew and Rebeca Anderson]

Ric,
Yeah, the hammers are well above the felt, I went for the standard 
0.390 key-dip as there was adequate after-touch.  Regulation is much 
improved now with the exception of a rather deep drop setting.  Drop 
screws were pretty much maxed out before I started on them.  A couple 
were broken so I guess the dealer tech. was up against it too.

As to history, I could try pumping the former Dean of the school for 
more info, he's a guitar guy and hard to catch.  As for the school, 
try deep Texas on the border where you have to know someone to do 
anything.  As for Steinway NY, it was a cost cutting move, leave 
finishing the pianos to the dealers (don't reduce the price) and the 
fabled marketing department pitched it as a piano locally customized 
for you!  Which means the Monday morning after... pianos slip out the 
door and get shipped to unsuspecting dealers who hope and pray for 
unsuspecting customers.

Andrew Anderson

At 12:48 PM 10/9/2006, you wrote:
>Sheeminees.... what University are we talking about here ? And what 
>kind of setup allows for a local dealer/technician combination 
>?  This almost sounds like you are in the deepest Ozarks or something :)...
>As far as your problem goes....  on the surface of it it would seem 
>the action stack is simply not high enough for the string height.... 
>and if that is noticably off on a stock D.... well then somebody in 
>New York had better wake up and smell the coffee pretty 
>soon.  Sheeshh.. I keep getting these  skrek stories about New York 
>Steinways from folks over there....  I gotta say tho... the Hamburg 
>Steinways I've seen are just simply beautiful.  The only <<problem>> 
>puppy I've run into so far has been one locally that had a buzzing cross strut.
>
>What to measure in addition to what you have listed ?  Well 
>definitely include your hammer bore length and rake angle.  I assume 
>you've already tried to get a decent regulation on this thing... but 
>by the sounds of it if you went with a 10 mm key dip you'd probably 
>have your shanks a half an inch or so above the cushions.  How does 
>it regulate ?
>
>And do you know anything about what actually has been done to the 
>piano beyond what you have said below ?
>
>Cheers
>RicB
>
>
>Ric, Dave, others,
>The piano faculty there until now just had the piano "tuned", they
>were rather surprised about how much difference a "technical" can
>make.    Didn't realize that there was more to a piano than "tuning"
>& maybe that black-art called voicing.  That said, it still is not as
>good as I made another local D because of the previous-mentioned problem.
>All previous work was apparently done by the rarely available and
>inaccessible dealer technician with little comment or
>explanation.  They can't really tell me much about its history.  It
>was selected new by the professor and he says if he had it to do over
>again he would choose differently.  He says he wished he had selected
>a "crisper" action but that what I have done has gone a long ways
>towards that goal.  A donor funded the purchase.
>
>The professor just played (last night) the Beethoven 5th piano
>concerto on two weeks notice because the original soloist was
>unexpectedly deployed (military).  He did a beautiful job of
>interpreting the work.  He commented on how much more responsive the
>piano was and how it doesn't wear him out like it used to.  (Wurzen
>punchings to the rescue.)
>
>I'm going to carefully measure string height, flange height, action
>spread, gap to fall-board and above fall-board and gap to the
>pinblock.  Are there any other measurements that would facilitate
>this discussion?
>
>Andrew Anderson