I would like to address the notion that changing moment of inertia of the key is not really going to accomplish much because the hammer is what really affects m.o.i.. For some reason, the key does have a noticeable effect. Let me give an example. A customer came into a friend of mine's store, and liked a certain piano except for the touch. It was too light. But he did like another piano's touch. After much consideration, we decided to measure the moi of the key (since that was easier to measure and change if need be). Using the formula (in grams and inches) and considering only the leads, we found differences such as 1700 for the lighter one at key #3 and the heavier one at 2400. The differences varied, but they were generally at least 500 in the bass and mid range of the piano. Without changing front weight, we increased the moi of the lighter piano to match the one the customer did like. The customer noticed the difference, and bought the piano. --- Alan McCoy <amccoy@mail.ewu.edu> wrote: > This has been an interesting thread. > > Ed Sutton is really trying to steer us in a more > fruitful direction when he > says: > > But what we are trying to do here (I think?), is try > to make piano actions > better for the pianists. > Since there are so many kinds of pianists, there > might be many ways to make > pianos better, of more adapted to various players > and ways of playing. > > And in particular, we were concerned with the > placement of key leads. For a > long time many of us have followed the rule of thumb > that it was better to > produce a given front weight by placing a large > quantity of lead close to > the balance rail than by placing a smaller quantity > close to the front, that > this makes the action "feel better" and repeat > faster, at least in the bass > octaves. > > If this is true, then it is worth going to a lot of > trouble to do it, if > not, it is a waste of time. > > FWIW, > > Alan > > ____________________________________________ > Alan McCoy, RPT > Eastern Washington University > 509-359-4627 > amccoy@mail.ewu.edu > > > > ===== Vince Mrykalo University of Utah __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/
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