William, pleasure to talk with you, Approximate numbers here only, so much depends on the piano and budget, condition, etc. First friction must be analyzed, this can be a 2 minute operation or can involve complete charting of the action, obviously on a cheap piano where we want bang for the buck the two minute analysis will rule. So, assuming we are still on our cheap piano, I just feel around, find some average notes and determine UW, DW, BW and friction. If friction is above 15 or so you have to fix that, if that's ok typical might be DW 37 UW 12 thus BW is 24.5 and friction at 12.5, I think, I hate doing this off the top of my head. This action will not feel very good. Have a sample wt in your kit like the ones you install at home. Slide it around first and last natural and first and last sharp in each section on the back of the key until you have a BW of around 37.5, make a chalk mark, draw a line connecting the dots, and go home and drill and fill. I think it's about the same for uprights as grands, but I really don't know. I'm just applying some of what I do on grands to uprights and finding a huge improvement. I am trying higher balance wts lately and like it, maybe 40. I know if friction is high you need a higher balance wt. I don't run around looking for consoletes to do this to, but I will spend less time doing this once and having it right, than dealing with repetition problems every time I see the piano. Pleasure talking with you, Fenton ----- Original Message ----- From: "William R. Monroe" <pianotech at a440piano.net> To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 6:27 AM Subject: Re: STRING COVER+FIRMER TOUCH > Hi Fenton, > > Comments below: > > > I've found that most all inexpensive small verticals need > > re-weighting/balancing of the keys. Upgrading to a better piano or not, > > > once you have the procedure down, it is a couple hours work with >minimal > > part cost, and major improvement in touch. > > I agree with this, but would still suggest that one really should look at > the capabilities of the instrument as a whole before reweighting. I think > there are enough folks out there with poor instruments that just need some > encouragement to upgrade to a decent instrument. A Kimball consolette is > still a Kimball consolette, regardless of UW/DW. > > > Many of these pianos have > > upweight of 12 to 15 grams, they just don't play well, the least bit of > > friction and notes fail. > > In an ideal world, on an upright piano, what would you like to have for UW, > DW (BW), or, more specifically, would these numbers be any different than > what you would like to have in a grand? > > Best, > William R. Monroe > > > >
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