<HTML>The problem is solved. Whether it is the best way or not, I don't know, but for now I got the hammers checking. Not only that, I even had two of our best students come in and play the piano, and they loved the way it feels. Remember, this is just a practice room piano. But even still, you want to do the best job. OK, here is what I did. I rounded the tails, as Kent suggested, and roughed them up. I put an arc on the tail last year, but the end of the tail was square. This at least got the hammers to check with the action out of the piano. But when I put the action back in, I still had problems on medium blows. I told you about the various shank lengths, most of them being from an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch too long. I discovered that the ones that were checking on softer blows, also had a weaker rep springs. So I reduced the rep springs, to the point where in the last octave of the bass, there was virtually no rise at all. I suspect that because of the extra weight of the longer shanks, the reps springs were too tight, which was causing the hammers to bounce off the balancier, even on the hardest of blows. Thanks to all of you for all the suggestions. What a great bunch of friends out there. Wim </HTML>