Chickering rebuild -- touchweight.

[Richard Brekne]

A balance weight of 50 grams is getting up there for sure.  I am not sure I
would look first at adding weight to the front.  Have you looked into the
possibility of hanging a new set of hammers and shanks ? This may be the way
to go really. You can have a lot more control over your end touchweight this
way.

I am not a fan of back weights.. but I wouldnt just remove them with out
further aduie... You might consider buying Dave Stanwoods kit and exploring
some of the posibilities his method has.

Gary Rondeau wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> I am rebuilding a 5'6", 1907 Chickering. So far I have re-bushed the
> keys, replaced the hammers with new shanks and knuckles and replaced all
> the keybed felt.  I have played on it for a year and am fairly happy
> with the results except that the touch is a bit heavy.  The balance
> weight averages about 50gm across the keyboard.  I plan to cut a little
> more weight off of the hammer tails, but there is not much more to be
> gained their. Hence, it looks like a reweighting of the keys is in
> order.  Presently, there are keyweights in the front of the keys on keys
> 1-50, and behind the pivot from 50-88.  My question is this -- If I am
> going to add front weight to the entire keyboard, what should I do up in
> the treble?  Should I remove the old keyweights behind the pivot first?
> If I don't do this, it seems that the inertial weight will climb in the
> treble since there will be weights on both the front and back.  Any
> suggestions on removing keyweights and plugging or not plugging the
> holes?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gary Rondeau
> Eugene, OR
> grondeau@efn.org

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no