The NY improved action also has a 17mm knuckle. You have to use this knuckle measurement or else you will be in big trouble when you weigh off an action with anything less than 17mm. If you use a pre-'84 15 mm shank with the current weight of hammer, you'll be putting so much lead in the keys to get downweight within a reasonable range that you can't pick up the keyboard when you're done. Your upweight will suffer tremendously as well. And if the piano is an accelerated action design, you may not be able to put in any additional lead for lack of space. All other things being considered, things such as key depth and hammer blow distance can be covered with custom hammer boring. If string height or key blow distance are your problem, then you will likely do better correcting such problems by having your hammers custom bored to the proper bore length, rather than order them with the factory standard. Here again, you can order your hammers from Steinway unbored, untapered, but coved. Then you can bore them yourself to a custom spec thereby ensuring that you can achieve proper let-off and key depth. Robert Grijalva Asst. Professor and Director, Piano Technology School of Music Phone: 734-764-6207 e-mail: pianoman@umich.edu
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