Virtual Capstan

Bill Ballard yardbird@vermontel.net
Sat, 21 Jun 2003 11:17:25 -0400


At 12:35 AM +0200 6/20/03, Richard Brekne wrote:
>The whippen assist spring simply makes the whippen lighter by
>pulling up against it from the whippen rail. This really does
>something quite different. It provides a secondary support for the
>weight of the action very much in the same sense that the
>capstan supports the action weight.

Under Newton's Third Law (Action and Reaction), the support for the 
force opposing the lifting of the spring is the action frame. Under 
your scheme, the support for the force opposing the magnets is the 
pianist's finger and hand. It doesn't sound as though the forces 
encountered in playing this action have been reduced by transferring 
them to something outside of the system of parts in motion (pianist 
included). But if you don't intend to counterbalance more than 5g of 
BW, this could be negligible.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"I gotta go ta woik...."
     ...........Ian Shoales, Duck's Breath Mystery Theater
+++++++++++++++++++++

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