This brings up an interesting point which I have been considering lately. I've dealt with this action, and in order to deal with the high leverages, I completely redesigned everything; rail locations, stack placement and angle, balance rail x&y location. It worked well, but I am beginning to think about it differently. All the changes to "correct" leverage were imposed by weights of modern hammers. As I'm thinking about it now, this action and its "inappropriate" leverage was designed with a light soft hammer in mind. As evidence of high leverage by design and not by mistake, I would point to the ebony on the #'s being shy of 1/2", more like 7/16", indicating less dip than is considered normal now. The solution to your problem might be to go back to the original knuckle placement and play with the lightest softest hammers you can muster, maybe even excavating the felt as Ed McMorrow does in his "Lighthammer" technique. The sound of the instrument, ie the interaction of action leverage/hammer weight/board response is harder to talk about, because the boards on these instruments are toast. Its hard to know what the original board response might have been. The one I dealt with was a 20 year old compression board which was also toast, 0-neg bearing, no crown, so no help there. But I do know on the 20 yr old dead board/action redesign, the Ronsen Wurzens I chose had to be voiced way down....very serious cushion to start, then I just completed a steam treatment which was a major improvement; successful as this board will allow I think.(very happy customer too) If your board is original and most likely dead, I would think dead is dead whether its 120yrs or 20yrs. How about trying the original knuckle, with Ronsen Bacons, no staple, excavated a bit to reduce their weights to achieve acceptable touchweights? This brings to mind my question....does anyone have any hammer or strike weight data from the original shanks/hammers on these pre-1910ish(?) action/belly systems? Jim I -- Jim Ialeggio grandpianosolutions.com 978- 425-9026 Shirley, MA > > I am regulating a 1885 Steinway A. At some point in its recent history the > hammers and shanks were replaced, but it was before the client purchased the > piano. > > As I got into the regulation I found I had to move the let off buttons to > their highest position in order to get the right amount of let off. The top > of the buttons were almost touching the let off rail. However, on ten > adjacent notes in the treble this was not true, and I achieved good let off > with the let off button in the middle of its adjustment range. It took me a > while to figure this out, but I finally realized that although all 88 shanks > were new, those ten that regulated normally had different shanks with > knuckles 1mm closer to the flange pin. > > Additionally the 10 different shanks give those notes a different action > ratio and a higher downweight. The action ration on the keys with the 78 > matching shanks is 5.4. On the 10 notes with the closer knuckle, the action > ration is 6.0, and the downweights are about 8 grams higher. > > There are two problems I'd like to solve. First, it bothers me that the let > off buttons are sitting so high on 78 of the notes. It's not an issue right > now, but could be later on if anyone ever wants to replace the left-off > buttons with new ones. Thicker let-off buttons would not regulate. > > The second problem is that on the 10 different shanks I need to reduce the > action ration and downweight to match the other 78. > > If I change the 10 odd shanks to match the other 78, I would have consistent > action ratio and downweight, but all let-off buttons would be at the extreme > of their adjustment range. If I change the 78 shanks to match the odd 10, > the let-off button position would be solved, but the downweight would be too > high. > > I would greatly appreciate any solutions, thoughts or advice. > > David Weiss > > > >
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