Yes... and there is also a couple other things to keep in mind. The action was designed (hopefully) for the key to be at a certain orientation (angle) at rest. For it to operate near its optimal then this should be maintained. You could for example easily raise the keys to get enough dip and end up with the capstan never actually passing through the center of its coincident arcs with the whippens movement. Ok... extreme example but you get my point. Johns point about the front rail pin is a good clue. The flip side of that is of course the key needs to be high enough to avoid the tip of the pin from contacting the underside of the inside of the key on a hard blow. There is also the keyslip clue. Get the proper key height for the action, and THEN set your key dip accordingly. Cheers RicB >There's room to raise the key height..yes I checked the sharps. Aside from making certain the sharps will not be affected by the fallboard there is a more important consideration. That is the depth of the front rail bushing on the pin. There should be at least 1/4" of the pin into the bushing at rest. Getting the key too high on the pin can cause accelerated wear from the end of the pin impacting into the cloth. In other words, the pin should be in as least as far as the depth of the cloth. So before you raise the key level, grip the f/r pin with tweezers at the bottom of various sharps and lift the key to see what is there. That info will inform you as to whether it is better to raise the keys or lower the dip. Adjusting the dip is much faster (lower cost) than to raise the level. Of course you have to consider the height of the key slip too. And around and around we go... Regards, Jon Page
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