1879 Steinway A

[A440A@aol.com]

<< changing a set of hammers and shanks on this old 

A.  The new shanks place the shank center pin about 2 mm further away 

from the hammer rail. This pushes the knuckles just a bit farther back 

then I would like, and will force me to go through all whippens and 

remove a bit of the jack return cushion in order to regulate the jacks.  

The origional whippens are going to remain and there is no regulating 

button for this position on those for those of you that arent familiar 

with this older type of Steinway action. The origional centerpin to 

knuckle was 15.5. So with the new shanks at 17, and the center itself 

out about 2 mm... the knuckle itself is out about 3.5 mm more.  The jack 

to knuckle position with the origional shanks and knuckles has the jack 

well under the knuckle and past the back end of the core... so there is 

room to make the adjustment to get a good position with the new shanks.


I'm looking for suggestions and thoughts as to what to do here. >>

Greetings,
     The first thing I suspect you will be doing is setting about 3 inches of 
keydip!  It sounds like you are really lenghtening the geometry, and I wonder 
why.  This piano, with its scale and soundboard loading,  was designed with 
small hammers in mind, and that shorter knuckle length works very well with 
that weight.  There is something very different about the feel of a light hammer 
and really fast geometry,(short leverage at the knuckle) when compared to 
heavier hammers and the increased leverage the longer geometry needed to keep the 
weight within reason.  Changing the whippens will not ameliorate this. 
    My suggestion would be to move the hammer rail to restore the hammershank 
center pin location to the original place, use the original short moment arm 
of the knuckle to pin, (which may call for moving the knuckle on a new set of 
shanks, there was a lengthy thread on that topic just recently), and install 
hammers sufficiently light to allow acceptable downweight with the existing 
average of frontweights you have on there.
    The model A pianos had a very responsive design, in both actions and 
scaling.  I would try to restore that, if at all possible. 
Regards,   
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html