Bechstein B hammer rake / more thoughts

[Richard Brekne]

Hi agin folks.


    "I don't know about fudging but the hammer to string geometry at
    impact seems to be of paramount importance.  While the shank
    horizontal at impact seems to be a reasonable goal (and I can't
    really see any downside all other things being equal) there are
    enough cases where it isn't and the action response is not
    compromised in any way so in certain cases, as you mentioned, I
    don't worry about it.  Piano work generally seems to have a fair
    amount of the fudge factor present. "


Well now this is the 1000 Zarlon question isnt it.  I've embarked on 
this little hammer as perpendicular to the string at impact as I can 
make it journey because  a few folks whom I have some respect for have 
encouraged me to try it out.  Its an interesting exercise at the least 
and has already yielded a couple interesting tidbits for my own thinking 
about some basic (hardly complicated)  math/geometry relationships that 
some seem to find constitute superfluous thinking.  That said there 
isn't a production line piano in the world that has the time to 
<<insure>> that this relationship exists with in tolerances anything 
close to what could be termed absolute, and they will say so right out. 
At least the dozen or so I've asked outright state this.  And then there 
is also that claims to how paramountly important this actually is are 
based on modeling only (that make sense as far as they go) but have 
never to my knowledge been shown to be true by any experimental 
methodology.  And no... the <<in my experience>> bit doesn't get it.  
The rules for quantifying such things are fairly clear and I know of no 
study done on the matter. I'd be delighted to read one however so bring 
em on !  The factories I've talked to all work with what appears to be 
as much as a few degrees of variance in hammer to string at impact 
angle. They say ... this is a production piano... we can only assure so 
much... or the like.   This seems to add up nicely with comments of how 
much one can improve on factory work from these  techs who've encouraged 
me to try this out.  So... I give it a try and see if I can notice a 
change in power I can relate to the hammer alignment. If I get some 
obvious lights on in that direction I might try setting up a little 
experiment to see what I can quantify for my own satisfaction. 

As far as fudge is concerned.  Clearly there is fudge everywhere in the 
world. Indeed sometimes I wonder if some folks are not purely covered 
with it :) Tho to be fair... each to his own. Including where and when 
and how much to apply fudge.

Cheers
RicB