Key Leads and Inertia

[Richard Brekne]

Bill Ballard wrote:


> >I am not sure where you are trying to take this Bill. Are you trying to
> >deny folks have been argueing about this ? or are you simply trying to put
> >everyone whose preferences do not include the use of assist springs
> >in some kind
> >of box... or what ?
>
> I'd just like to begin listing the pros and cons. My own position is
> they do a great job of lowering BW without adding to FW. The decision
> as to whether they should be used to overcome a .58 KR (instead of
> directly correcting the KR) is matter between the pianist and his/her
> wallet. I'm with you and David Love in that I have no interest in
> SWs-on-steroids, and you won't find me using springs to
> counter-balance such SWs.

They certainly do lower BW without adding to FW. But now that we are on the same
page about whether or not the choice of springs visa vi leads results in a
significant difference in how the action behaves, I'm sure its also easy to see
that at least some portion of this is going to necessarilly fall into a more or
less subjective category which will be hard to quantify in terms of performance
shortcomings.

Some folks are just plain going to like the feel of lead driven counterbalancing
compared to springs or magnets.

.............

> Richard Brekne writes:
>
> >So if they are just going to sit there, or be misused, and arent
> >neccessary in the first place... whats the point ?... to satisfy
> >some engineer ????

To whit Bill responds

> Well if they've helped to provide the desired BW/FW combination, then
> it's understandable that they might be largely ignored once
> installed. The ability to try a number of BWs in short order is an
> interesting one, though.

Grin... we are going in circles me thinks.... I dont believe there exists a
desirable BW/FW combination that cannot be accomplished without the use of assist
springs. I also dont believe there exists a desirable SW level that cannot be
comfortably counterbalanced with leads and an appropriate ratio.

The adjustment of BW issue, while admitedly interesting and of potential value, in
reality is of no use.... because nobody uses it. The adjustment itself probably
gets misused, more then not. And in any case, an on the fly change in BW
independant of action mass is not something I see a lot of demand for from
pianists. In fact,  Stephens slopes would seem to be telling us that the adjustment
of BW should be done from exactly a mass standpoint instead.

A heavy or light action seems to be more a result mass levels, then it is of BW.
The usefullness of BW alone in describing action weight is really not alllll that
much greater then simple DW when it comes right down to it.

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html