[pianotech] Adding weight to Wurly Console action/keys

[Ron Nossaman]

For a very long time, I've thought it a disservice that the public 
"educational" system(s) here haven't made some effort to teach something 
of basic physics to the intermittently attending conscriptees. Talking 
to another tech years back about some simple universal physics 
principles that eliminated the need to memorize specific checklist 
actions on some now forgotten procedure, he dismissed me with "I never 
took physics". Me either, but I live in a world that is governed by it 
on all levels outside the human mind (a whole nother world). If not 
physics, what guides and governs troubleshooting, repair, adjustment, 
modification, and refinement of every physical manifestation around us, 
including this unlikely wood, iron, wire, and wool contraption we've 
adopted as a means to make a living?

I can't remember most of the now many thousands of times I've looked at 
something unfamiliar and understood what it did and how it did it (at 
least on a basic level) because I recognized the known physics 
application. Many other times, a chance remark from someone produced a 
"well, duh" forehead slap moment as something I'd not given 
consideration clicked in place and connected a whole bunch of associated 
previously unexamined floaters.

I see someone posting in to the list with a question about how to fix 
something, or one of the dreaded "puzzlers". The responses are usually a 
huge collection of very low incidence "what I found once" or an amazing 
list of all the possibilities in the known universe. Chose one and 
guess. The physics based troubleshooters don't post this stuff, because 
they find it while they're at the piano. What does it look like I'm 
seeing? Is it consistent with known physical reality? No, revise premise 
and start looking. Consider the possible first, with what's likely from 
memory, bypassing the universal tendency to invent fantasy explanations 
for everything with no understanding until you can establish a physics 
based cause and relationship for the cause of your problem. Test, 
revise, narrow down, test, etc. It's there, and a rational decision tree 
of sorts is a much more workably efficient way to find it than random 
guessing. Unlike people, physics doesn't hallucinate, believe in magic, 
or lie to itself (just stay away from cosmologists and quantum 
physicists for now). Ask yourself why what you're assuming is probably 
wrong, instead of clutching at the first notion that passes through with 
an unbreakable death grip and hurrying past the more likely causes. 
Being wrong in the first pass is both likely and instructional, if 
you'll allow it and modify your premise to accommodate observation 
instead of the usual other way around. Again, there are physics based 
reasons for every mechanical function or dysfunction. The resolution of 
our alleged brains and our available measuring tools limits us to the 
more coarse interactions, so we'll not be able to tell what the 
molecules are thinking, but we can certainly learn something of weights 
and balance and empirically test dynamic interactions. Best evidence, 
least bad, use of the resources available to us (with the pianotech help 
hotline not the first thing on the list, hopefully). It's a continual 
refinement series, not a one shot absolute.

Good job Dean.
Ron N