[CAUT] NY hammers/ Hamburg hammers

Horace Greeley hgreeley at sonic.net
Sun Feb 13 16:05:24 MST 2011


Hi, Bob,

Lowering the stack won't fix the problem, only exacerbate it.  The 
stack height has to be in relation with the actual deck height 
(keybed to under side of the string at the strike point at note 
#62).  If the plate is in high, the stack must be adjusted (within 
reason) to accommodate.  Raising it more than 1/8" causes other 
problems.  Also, don't forget to raise the backchecks and reset the 
angle at which they address the hammer tails...probably re-arc the 
hammer tails if there's enough meat on them.

If you don't have the budget for lowering the plate (and all that 
goes with it), you'll have to compensate in other ways.  This is 
basically a problem created by shortcircuiting the forefinishing 
process, and hoping no one will notice.

Especially given where you're located, I suspect I'd be very 
reluctant to use the glide to do more than set them to provide their 
basic function of mid-point contact on the keybed to support the keyframe.

There's a fairly long list of things to do to overcome (or, at least 
partially mitigate) these issues without doing reconstructive 
surgery....kind of depends on how involved you want to get and what 
the expected outcome might be...oh, yes...budget.

Best.

Horace


At 02:45 PM 2/13/2011, you wrote:
>Thanks for the squaring info - I'm working on a pre-hung set of 
>Steinway hammers on a 1992 D right now.     I don't think this 
>hammer set was pre-lacquered in the factory, given the amount of 
>juice I've used.
>
>This D has a high plate as well.  I had shimmed the stack for the 
>old hammers and left the shims in for the time being with the new 
>hammers.   The action plays ok, but I'm looking for Shigeru Kawai 
>smooth, and it's not that - yet.
>
>I wonder if I should remove the shims from under the stack, and re 
>reg the action, now that I have hammers with a bit more meat on 
>them?  After all, it must have worked well when brand new, right?
>
>I bedded the frame, set key height and dip per spec and it played 
>like a truck.   So I lowered the glides to raise the key height 2mm, 
>re set the dip, and it's markedly better, but not quite there.  I 
>can't raise the keys much more or there will be fallboard clearance 
>issues, both at the bottom of the fall, and bottom of the 
>stretcher.  Besides, I'm already springing the key frame a bit 
>lowering the glides more than spec.
>
>By the way, this action has WNG aluminum capstans, due to heavy 
>touch with the old hammers.
>
>Bob Maret
>UCF
>
>
>
>



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