Rigid shank (was Scruffing -was etc.)

[RicB]

Hi Stéphane

The presumed benifit of a stiffer shank is of course that the thing will 
flex less... i.e. give rise to a more powerful and precise impact of the 
hammer to the strings.  I'm not at all sure anyone as tried to ascertain 
if there is an optimal stiffness for this purpose to begin with, so its 
hard to give even an educated answer to your question. The thing is 
tho... even if you can find the optimal stiffness for this specific 
concern its not a given that you wont have to sacrifice too much of some 
other concern.  And impact noises and their impact on the overall sound 
is one that comes to mind immediately.  Also... the stiffer a shank is 
the more likely it will break at some certain stress level rather then 
bend.  So in addition to being stiffer it would have to be stronger as 
well.  You get into a lot of things real quickly here.  Fun to use up a 
few of those grey cells I suppose pondering... but personally, I'll 
leave any serious looking into this bit to the manufacturers :)

As for the word magic.  Its fair enough to use.  Piano sound is very 
much a matter of magic.... that is to say if magic is a word that can be 
used to describe a phenomenon we only partly understand.  Heck... lots 
of folks use all kinds of words for stuff we dont have a clue about.... 
God for instance.... :)...

Cheers
RicB


    Hello Ric.

    I agree totally on what you say here.  I ended up finding that
    impact noise
    control (shanks, punchings and voicing) together with accurate
    strike point
    distance can make or destroy the magic (sorry for the word) of a piano
    sound.
    Do you think there is a reason to believe that more rigid shanks are
    desirable ?  Of course, one can not consider this parameter apart
    from all
    the others.  But yet...

    Best regards.

    Stéphane Collin.