Tokiwa vs Renner underlever kits

[Tom Servinsky]

Dale said;
  ----- Origina By the way the New Tokiwa wippens for Steinway are a spitting image of the Renner part provided by the Steinway N.Y factory.  I have a set on the shelf. They are beautiful & I am installing this set soon in a Stwy D. I have compared them side by side with the Renner parts & you cannot tell the difference except the Tokiwa parts have a number conveinently located on the repitition lever.l Message ----- 

  Dale,
  Ditto on the Tokiwa wippens. I have installed about 1/2 dozen sets and have had great results.
  Tom Servinsky



    Hi Mark
     I have installed many Renner parts but not as of yet the Tokiwa kit however I plan to make it my next install choice. I have looked closely at the parts & have samples. It's good to have more than one choice.  Right?
     In the past....far past ,Tokiwa parts, as you alluded to, had seizing pin/parts problems.  I spoke with Randy Morton at length this past summer about my pinning concerns. The short story is that the problem was a procedural one at Tokiwa which took a while for the Management at Tokiwa to acknowledge.  IN the process of Randy proving the problem to them they built new test equipment which quickly caused the parts to seize up after about 2 to 3 thousand repetitions.   ummm!  well...    
       After this encounter Randy hired the engineer that literally wrote the book on Yamaha flange pinning technique and brought him to Tokiwa book and all, where he employed the tried & true Yamaha materials & techniques & for many years now.
    This was good for me to know.  The fastest way to loose money is to use parts that have problems that can only be solved by our free/expensive labor to ....do over! 
    Also next time you need more sos tab clearance why not use a cardboard shim on the rear of the old blocks.
    By the way the New Tokiwa wippens for Steinway are a spitting image of the Renner part provided by the Steinway N.Y factory.  I have a set on the shelf. They are beautiful & I am installing this set soon in a Stwy D. I have compared them side by side with the Renner parts & you cannot tell the difference except the Tokiwa parts have a number conveinently located on the repitition lever.
    FWIW
   Cheers
    Dale
    Does anyone out there have recent comparative experience with BOTH the Renner and Tokiwa damper back-action kits? I've installed several of the Renner kits, but the quality of the pinning of this last one left a lot to be desired. As you can see in the photo the post pinning was substantially out of square. The flange pinning of this particular underlever was also off, but in the opposite direction, which had the effect of throwing the post even farther out of alignment. This was probably the worst example in the set, but many others were off by lesser amounts. I'm thinking that I might try the Tokiwa kit next time, but I’ve had problems with seizing centers on other Tokiwa parts in the past, and as a result I am reluctant to use them in general.

     

    Renner has also switched from beech to Delignit  for the tray material, so be careful if you’re drilling for the flange screws using their countersinking bit – I snapped one of the screws off due to the higher density! Next time I’ll ream the holes out a few thousandths more. The other lesson that I learned on this one is to check the horizontal clearance between the backside of the post and the upstop rail. Since the new style sprung sostenuto tab flanges extend slightly behind the post they were rubbing on this particular example, which I corrected by making new pivot blocks with the hole located about 1/32” farther from the belly rail.

     

    - Mark Dierauf

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