[CAUT] add capstans to tray?

[David Skolnik]

Hi RicB-
But you said "
>the reasons for capstans is to
>         >assure that each hammer lifts at exactly half blow.
You godda have meant "each damper lifts at exactly half blow", goddant you?
As long as your in a esplaining mood, I'm still not sure I get 
it.  Any chance you could run a step by step, starting with dampers 
installed but without topflange screw tightened?
David S
sorry for leaving the original text, but it were relevant


At 07:03 AM 3/24/2007, you wrote:
>Hi David Skolnik
>
>No.. I meant what I meant.  But I see now what the confusion is all 
>about.  Funny that none of the folks that regularly deal with Yamaha 
>picked up on this.  A picture is worth a thousand words as they 
>say... so I will include a picture of the Yamaha Damper Capstan system.
>
>As you can see the capstans are lifted by the tray, but attached to 
>the underside of the whippens.  And that I think should answer your 
>questions and befunderments :)  I just noticed the picture Ron 
>included in his response to Mark and see the function of that is 
>entirely different.  I will think on the matter, but my first 
>reaction is that one has no way of assuring precise damper timing 
>for each key with that system outside of shimming the keyback 
>felts... which is the whole point of the Yamaha capstans.  If the 
>capstans on the tray in Rons picture are simply to make adjusting 
>pedal lift of the dampers easier.... well I see the point but have 
>no problem doing this the standard way myself.
>
>Cheers
>RicB
>
>Its probably good that this confusion came up... so as to avoid 
>techs thinking they can treat each system alike.
>
>
>    RicB -
>    We know you meant "damper lift", not "hammer lift".  Otherwise, I'll
>    take two opportunities to prove my ignorance.  Or not.  I gotta tell
>    you,  I'm reading this over and over and I isn't getting it.  It
>    seems to be mixing up the key based damper lift with the sustain
>    pedal lift.  Traditionally, you would set your sample damper heights
>    to the key lift (1/3 to 1/2, no?), then set the other damper levers
>    to the same height.  You would then shim or scrape to refine key
>    lift, and the same for tray (sustain pedal) lift.  I would have
>    thought that the capstans would address the latter step.  How do the
>    capstans have anything to do with key lift?  And refining the damper
>    lift by loosening the screw and readjusting the wire doesn't make
>    sense.  Help me understand.
>
>    David Skolnik
>
>
>        At 03:27 PM 3/23/2007, you wrote:
>         >Hi Mark...
>         >
>         >I cant speak for any article on the subject... but the Yamaha
>         >Academy at Hamamatsu teaches that the reasons for capstans is to
>         >assure that each hammer lifts at exactly half blow. Since at the
>         >time they only had this feature on CF III's and I was at masters
>         >level I only had this shown to me quickly and only then because I
>         >was ahead of pace enough that they bothered to run me through it.
>         >
>         >One set samples for each section so that the damper lever
>        started in
>         >motion with the hammer at half blow for all samples.  Then one
>         >leveled the capstans with a straight edge from below.  At that
>        point
>         >we were taught that these were not to be adjusted again unless it
>         >was to re-level the entire set of capstans.
>         >
>         >They were NOT to be used to fine adjust damper lift from the
>         >strings. This was to be done as normal by loosening the damper
>        wire
>         >screw and raising or lowering the damper as required.  They were
>         >very adamant about that.
>         >
>         >Cheers
>         >RicB
>
>
>