<html> <br> Hi Doug,<br>              the tailing on the Korean piano you are talking about should be 2 1/2" to 3" radius from the hammer shank to the bottom of the tail. The tailing should also be at 90 degrees to the shank, and not the 15 degrees off set that you will find from the factory.<br> Correct tailing will give better checking and reduce the wear on the flange centres.  Having the tail square with the hammer rail, will help to trap the tail into check, the angle that is there from the factory is actualy self defeating, as it want's to push the hammer out of check.<br> If any checkering is required it should only be quite light.<br> After tailing you will have to realign the face of the checks plus reset the rake and distance, with care you can get these pianos to check at 1/2" in the bass on a <i>ppp</i> blow.<br> The touch will also improve as this will remove almost 1 gm of mass, netting you about 5 gms of down weight.<br> We taper and tail 100% of our Wurlitzer products with this problem.<br> Regards roger<br> <br> <br> At 07:42 AM 14/04/00 -0400, you wrote:<br> >Hi one and all,<br> ><br> >What are the criteria used in determining grand hammer tail taper shape.  Is<br> >it factors of clearence with neighboring parts and weight reduction?  As<br> >most of you know, the Korean pianos come through with none of this done,<br> >just the tail arcing and some very rough ridges for checking purposes that<br> >always seem to tear up the backchecks prematurely.<br> ><br> >Thanks and a good weekend to all.<br> ><br> >Doug Mahard<br> > <br> <div>Roger Jolly</div> <div>Saskatoon, Canada.</div> <div>306-665-0213</div> Fax 652-0505 </html>