Patrick, Anyone can make a jig. You might take the hammer travel measurements and recreate them on a bench. You could allow for trip on the let off with some kind of additional piece for the jig. I can imagine a base with an upright that fixes to the action brackets to recreate the measurements of the piano. "We have done this with grand actions for years and achieve rather helpful regulations. Anything you do that makes it easy for you is great: maybe you will continue to informed the rest of us. William ----- Original Message ----- From: Patrick Mackey To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 9:15 AM Subject: [pianotech] spinet regulation List, I had an idea about streamlining the process for spinet regulation jobs that I'd like to vet. I tried it once with great results, but I don't know how universal it would be. Here goes: I wanted to get as much done on the bench as possible, so having set letoff reliably (you'll have to take my word for it) I made a stab at bending backcheck wires. I made the assumption that aligning the very top of the backcatch to the very top edge of the b'check felt would be ideal, as far as how it was designed to work. (New felts and leathers.) After side-to-side alignment was done, I just lined up the tops, lined up the surfaces so they mate all the way down, then holding the wip in check position, I looked at "aftertouch", or how far the jack had cleared the butt. If it was too close, I bent the wire in, re-aligned (it took a lot a of little tweaks, but it went faster after I go into it), and if it was clearing too far I bent it out, etc. I just tried to make it look right, maybe 2mm of clearance, and I tried to be consistent from note to note. Once I got that done I took the keys out, put the action in, and one by one I put the keys in, and set the dip so that I got back to my jack clearance that I had on the bench. Once again, it got pretty quick after a while, and I wasn't really being all that finicky. I was really pleased with the way it felt, as far as consistency goes. If I had to do all that bending and aligning in the piano, I just would have given up and called it a spinet. Some observations and questions: 1. This method is totally dependent on letoff being set. If I have to change letoff in the piano, I have to bend the wire and realign (a little). 2. As I said, it also depends on the action being designed to have the top of the catch line up with the top of the felt, with the surfaces mated well. I have seen upright actions where this was not the case. Is this just because nobody took the time to line them up, or are the parts just made that way? If I take an action that doesn't have these edges aligned, and bend the wire so they will align, will that screw up the action? 3. My ultimate goal is to be able to take a drop action to the shop and do everything--hammer filing, damper wire bending, alignment and regulation--before bringing it back to its home, and minimizing the time spent in the house. I have a vague memory of a photo (in the PTJ?) of an action rack fitted with plexiglass that was used to do the side-to-side damper alignment on the bench. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I have wasted a lot of aluminum trying to replicate it from memory. Thanks in advance, Patrick Mackey New Orleans -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091222/6a402e2f/attachment-0001.htm>
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