Mason AA key end felts

[Stéphane Collin]

Hi Tom, David, Ed.

Ed, you are the first tech I ever met to bring this up : setting the 10 (or so) last bass damper levers lower, so they start earlier than the others with the pedal, in order to produce some "reverberation" effect when playing the piano with half pedaling.
The fact is that I saw this arrangement a few times on some old and untouched Bechstein pianos, and the effect is so pleasing (when well used) that I do this routinely now on pre war pianos.  Even more, I would now taper the heighth of the last bass damper levers so that they lift one after the other, starting with the lowest one.  Unbelievable what different colour shades you can achieve with this arrangement.
But I never thought that the key timing was also changing.  Of course this makes sense.
Now, how should we regulate this accurately ? Start with the same thickness of key end felts, then shave a little felt and check the key timing ?  But how do we shave felt (this was always difficult in my world).

Best regards.

Stéphane Collin.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Ilvedson 
  To: ed440 at mindspring.com ; pianotech at ptg.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 9:12 AM
  Subject: Re: Mason AA key end felts


  Ed,

  Could you clarify that...set lower to allow easy half pedaling...

  David Ilvedson, RPT
  Pacifica, CA 94044


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