[CAUT] moving capstans question

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Keith

This is easy enough to contrive yourself.  It should be mentioned tho 
that the ratio measured is not the same ratio as the Stanwood ratio... 
nearly every instrument will end up yeilding two reasonbly significant 
different  results when both ratio measurements are the same.  And tho I 
have yet to check it... I dont think either of them are the same ratio 
as the Overs method.. which is more akin to what designers operate with. 

Important destinctions if one is thinking about using the distance ratio 
that Dales kit addresses for setting up a Stanwood like action balance.  
The resultant BW will almost always be a couple grams off.

Cheers
RicB

    If you had one of Dale Erwins Action Ratio Kits you could measure
    the action
    ratio without having to worry about friction as a component.
    Basically it
    depresses a key 6mm for you and there is a mm measuring tool to
    measure the
    hammer rise. Then you read the ratio from the side of the tool. I just
    replaced the hammers on a 6'2 Grotrian and it had 5 leads in the
    bass just
    like the situation you describe. Grotrian moves the stack to find strike
    point and that put the capstans on the the back of the wippen heel,
    beyond
    the red underfelt in the center of the heel. The action ratio
    measured 1 to
    6.3. I determined that moving the capstan to the front of the heel
    changed
    the action ratio to 1 to 4.8. When I put it slightly forward of
    center, the
    ratio was 1 to 5.5. I now have three leads max in the bass. The keys
    themselves have a lot of mass so now this piano plays like dream.

    On the S&S, Moving the knuckle is the usual case but Steinway does
    move the
    stack on the key frame to find the strike point. Tokiwa is making really
    nice parts and has 17 mm knuckle placement shanks and whips that
    match. In
    Dale's shop I just did a Renner back action for a B and then a
    Tokiwa back
    action for somethindg. They were done almost side by side and I had less
    traveling and alignment to do with the Tokiwa parts. I was much
    happier with
    the wippens too.

    Keith Roberts