Continuing saga: I spoke with a Steinway technician in the service department this morning (name slips me) and have the following solution(s) recommended, He is sending 1/16" walnut shims cut to fit under the action feet and raise the action by that much, I'll have to re-time the checking & reset let-off he recommends buying the un-bored Steinway hammers and custom boring them to take up some of the over-striking difference (my measurements on the existing hammers suggest that they have been over-filed already by 1/8 -3/16" so my high grit polishing isn't the first time this has been done.) We discussed string height and he gave one specification: note 66 is to be 7&3/4" +/- 1/8" above the key-bed. I pointed out that my measurements put this area very close to 8". He became a little defensive and said that fixing this would require rebuilding the piano and that Steinway wasn't going to do this (I had mentioned the piano was still under warranty). I then asked him about Steinway policy regarding over-striking. He plainly said that the hammers shouldn't overstrike. Of-course they all do now by significantly more than the amount they have been filed under standard bore and most likely were by a significant amount when the piano was new. I mentioned checking and capsizing problems with too short hammer tails too far above the action and he didn't have much to add other than that shimming the action by 1/16 should help with the capsizing. He couldn't get me stats on the size of the un-bored hammers. I'm guessing they are the same size as the bored ones and I'm not too enthusiastic about boring those much lower on the tail. Custom hammers by another hammer maker may be the better way to go, but than there is the Steinway Only politics to deal with... So, my solution is drifting towards this: Shim the key-frame 1/16" Shim the action stack 1/16" Recommend new hammers (really this should be a warranty item too, there is significant labor in this) This gets me a third of the way with adequate clearance at the fall-board and 1/16" clearance at the pinblock with the drop screws backed all the way out. Taller hammers will drag going in and out and I'll have to watch that (had a mishap on a Chinese-made piano yesterday). By shimming both I reduce the problem to the neighborhood of 1/16" so a lower bore won't be so worrisome. Do any of you have more to add? Andrew Anderson, Artisan Piano
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