Lead in European Instruments

[Farrell]

Certainly heed Roger Jolly's advice and establish with certainty whether it can go as it is with the lead.

But, if you find that the lead is a problem, I've one idea anyway - and it perhaps is the easiest - would be to have someone like David Stanwood balance the action. Set the action up with wippen assist springs - those will eliminate much of the lead/weight needed in the keys. Then with the reduced weight needs, I'm sure one could successfully weigh off the keys using steel/brass/whatever, and as these other metals are quite a bit less malleable than lead, you would likely have to epoxy them in place - that's why it would be REALLY smart to do a nice action balancing job - because the key weighing would be somewhat permanent (more permanent than traditional leading).

You could skip the balancing thing and just replace the lead with an equal weight of brass (placed so as not to change the balance), but it sure seems to me that proper balancing would be in order with this permanent-type of modification.

And I believe someone has a retro-fit magnetic system available, but I don't know much about it.

Terry Farrell
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  I am posting to the list for the first time, so I would like to introduce myself.

  My name is Scott Nelson and I am a member of the Detroit-Windsor Chapter.I have been tuning pianos for about 20 years now and have been an RPT for 12.

  I have a client with a Baldwin SF-10 that wants to ship the piano to Poland. As I understand it, lead is supposed to be phased out of keys by the end of the year in the European Union. 

  My question is whether this applies only to new instruments and/or imported instruments. If this is not the case, what suggestions do you have for a substitute material to be used for weigh-off? Are there any composites that would suffice? What prototype systems other than the Petrof magnet setup are currently being developed?

  I appreciate any knowledge or insight into this question.

  Thanks,

  Scott Nelson, RPT
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