1/2 punching

[Ric Brekne]

Hi Ric.

You ask one of  those 50 thousand dollar questions... "How does the 
pianist experience the change ? "

I have only limited experiences to relate... but these point in the 
direction that the change in how the pianist experiences the dynamic 
weight is significantly less then one would expect... tho there is more 
then enough change to make the effort worth while.  I'm left feeling 
that if you are putting on a SW curve of say middle highs, then no 
amount of leverage changes will completely compensate for this. The 
pianist will still <<notice>> in some sense or another that his / her 
fingers are pushing around a set of heavy radius weights on the shanks.

I've been thinking most of the day along these lines really.  I have an 
old O in the shop and it has very light hammers.  Mid lows to be exact. 
In addition it has the old flange types which bring the center pin in 1 
mm closer to the hammer rail then modern Steinways do, AND it has 15 mm 
knuckle to center lengths origionally. Despite the low Strike weights, 
assist springs were required to achieve a reasonably low balance weight 
and static down weight.

Now I am putting on a set of one quarter highs, using the origional 
flanges and shanks that have 16.3 knuckle to centers distance. This 
allows for a jack position I can live with, increases my leverage quite 
a bit really... and allows for the heavier hammers given the fact that I 
can use both assist springs and have plenty of key lead room to go on.  
Yet I have no doubt its going to be realllllllly difficult to get close 
to the origional feel of this instrument... simply because the hammers 
are so much heavier.  I can achieve the same BW... and the same static 
down weight no problem... can even lower this significantly.  But how 
much lower I need to go with these before the pianist percieves a more 
or less unchanged dynamic response......  well, thats whats been on my 
mind most of the day.

That said... changing the key ratio by use of one or another of the 
mechanisms we've presented used judiciously can be a valuable tool in 
your box of touchweight tricks. That, I think is Stanwoods greatest 
contribution to us all.... making us aware of some of these kinds of 
possibilities.  Lots still to be uncovered on that front me thinks.

Cheers
RicB

Hi Ric & List,
 
I have just spent half an hour playing around with my 3 note model having  
been thinking about this half punching thing on and off all day. What a  
saddo!  
My final experiment was to discard the punching and put a  cente pin behind
the balance pin.  A 26 gauge kept the key level  integrity.  I couldn't 
believe
how easily the hammer flew with the same  weighting in the key.  I have 
just
come to my PC and see that RicB has  already tried this as an 
experiment.  I'm
reasonably new to all this  geometry business and find these relevations
fascinating.  One question  would be, how does this change of the 
fulcrum with the
resultant loss of 'magic  line' integrity, manifest itself in feel to a
pianist.  Does this  method of lightening DW result in an uncontrolable 
feel?
 
ric