stack fit to keyframe

[John Delacour]

At 1:49 pm -0700 9/9/06, David Ilvedson wrote:

>When I come across a grand action stack that doesn't fit flush to 
>the keyframe, I have typically thought the keyframe should 
>beÊshimmed to fit...
>
>What I'm concerned about:   This action/keyframe is perfectly mated 
>to the keybed as it is...I'm wondering if I might not change 
>something not necessarily for the better...????

Any shimming or shaving you do is unlikely to change the mating of 
the key-frame to the key-bottom.  The main question is whether the 
line of the hammer-centres (and of the lever-centres) is straight and 
parallel to the key-bottom, or the underside of the wrestplank, which 
ought to amount to the same thing.  Then there is the question of the 
height of the hammer-centre line, the differential boring of the 
hammer-heads etc.  It is quite easy to get things wrong unless the 
whole geometry of the action and the strings is taken into account 
and the best makers are not guaranteed to get it right in the first 
place once the drawing board fades into history.  I recently had to 
make significant adjustments to a Hamburg Steinway of 1923 which can 
never have been properly set up.

JD