Journal Articles

[Susan Kline]

At 02:07 PM 5/31/2004 -0500, Mark wrote:
>Pianos had been regulated for very, very close let-off (ala; Fred S.)
>however drop was uniformly about 1/4," and rep. springs were fairly hyper.
>(presumeably the wide drop was compensation for the strong spring settings?)

Yes, I think that is probably true. What hasn't been said is that the
hammers were no doubt extremely free. I think that people are sometimes
too aggressive about reducing hammer center friction, but they don't want
to slow the jacks by setting the springs weaker, so the wide drop is
just the only way they can think of to solve the double-striking problem.
Not the best answer, to my way of thinking.

This brings up another question. Right out of the chute, that piano was
probably set up well ... but let some industrious pianists play it for
however long they want, and then check the number of swings on the
hammers. Do we send it out "right", knowing that they are going to lower
the hammer friction darned fast, or do we send it out with a swing or
two less than "spec"?

In working on Linfield's performance S&S D, I repinned some hammers
on arrival which had 14 swings (two years after new hammers, shanks,
and flanges.) I repinned them to three swings, knowing that they would
loosen up fairly fast to four or five. Two years later, I
got to repin all the hammers, and found the ones I had repinned at
three swings had been played till they had ten.

Best,
Susan Kline