stickey spinet keys this month's PTJ

[Fenton Murray]

In the PTJ this month 2 topics: sticky keys in a spinet and spoon bending, I
would not bend spoons like that except in an emergency, not a good idea,
very hard on everything.
Regarding the spinet with sticky keys.
It's been a long time since I've looked at the list but had to put in my 2
cents here. These sticky spinet keys are kind of representative of my 30
years of working on pianos. I started out weighting the backs of the keys.
Thinking this was treating the system instead of the problem I looked for
everything else. As I started to gain an understanding of the piano action,
I realized the rear of the key usually needs weighting. Full circle, as life
often is. Try proceeding as follows:
With a regulated note.
Depress damper pedal.
Measure down and upweight. DW-UW divided by 2= friction. If less than 14 or
15 proceed, if more correct friction.
Now you could determining balance weight, but I would skip that and simply
weight the rear of the key to achieve a minimum of 22 grams UW or so. Yes,
the piano was not finished when it was shipped from the factory, all the
fussing and fuming and regulating will not fix this. 45 minutes at the drill
press installing leads in the back of the keys will make the piano play like
it never did. Small spinets and consoles can really benefit from this.
Simply go along with you sample weight in the home and chalk the key to mark
for lead. Take them home and drill and install. I'm assuming the piano had
no key weights at all, obviously if leads are in the front of the key, those
would come out.
Fenton Murray, RPT
www.MurraysPianoTuning.com