Dale: This is almost exactly my technique as well. It works quite nicely. Paul In a message dated 2/7/2010 11:12:41 P.M. Central Standard Time, erwinspiano at aol.com writes: By the way Randy Chastain asked about procedure for finding a different strike line. This obviously must be done by ear. I apply tape to the key bed in front of the action frame as a guide and then pull the action in and out listening for clarity and sustain. When the right spot is found I place a mark on the tape. This becomes my measure as to how far the hammer is to be moved. In conjunction with that depressing the soft pedal will reveal weak whiny nasal sound when the strike line is not tonally optimal. Usually that sound is gone completely when the hammers are in the right spot(whatever that is) Dale -----Original Message----- From: erwinspiano at aol.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Sun, Feb 7, 2010 7:28 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] Hammer strike line. Was-----Yamaha Hammer Suggestion Ok guys . I'll be the experiential contrarian Not all our boards produced are RC & S but I find no difference to strike line vulnerability. My Own Steinway B is RC&S has a 15 rib fanned rib scale, massive bass curve cut-off and a beefed up tone/treble belly brace bar. It benefitted greatly from a significant strike line change. Perhaps our recipes are not the same. It has amazing tuning stability, wonderful sound. IMHO and what my experience is is that hey all benefit from some change both in power and sustain, at least in my shop. So I change the strike line. I think it could be a combination of things. Sure the board parameters. Yes and perhaps the plate. New B and D plates have been altered and are way less problematic. I have wondered if it has something to do with hammer to string contact time as most after market modern hammers installed are not the same light weight devices originally installed up till the 1960's? or so. Usually a 1 to 2 gram difference. In the treble this is significant. Next, one that comes to mind is the way we all bore the hammers. Original hammers and shanks over centered a good bit. Our shop does not do it this way. My formula is :String height minus center pin height minus 1 mm in each section. This probably pushes the strike point further out away from the sweet spot. Original stwy hammers have approx. a 1 degree rake toward the tail of the piano. I don't do this. So...the question is, what was there idea? Many pianos prepped hammers this way. Most of the hammers I install are low compresion hammers At any rate Paul ...questions remain. Dale I've found the same thing. Strike line deviation being necessary on original boards but when I replace the board on the same piano with a RC&S board the strike line seems to straighten out, or the curve becomes unnecessary. What's that about? David Love _www.davidlovepianos.com_ (http://www.davidlovepianos.com/) William Truitt wrote: > I too have staggered the strike line on Steinway grands and other pianos > to find the sweet spot and get the best tone. So let's ask the question > of the why of that - what is going on in the plate and string interface > in relation to the action that requires something other than a straight > line to achieve the best tone? Look at where the farthest deviation from a straight line is. Gee, that looks like the most universally problematic part of Steinway, and other largely panel supported crown, scales. How can there possibly be tonal problems in the killer octave? Must be the plate casting. As I periodically repeat, I find this phenomenon to not be obvious in low compression and adequately supported RC&S systems. I still check now and then, but find the difference, if I can detect any at all, to not be worth the trouble to deviate from the straight line on a new RC&S board. On an original board, it's likely obvious enough to be worth the trouble. I think it's primarily the soundboard. Ron N -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100208/81cb84bd/attachment.htm>
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