Gram Tension Gauges

Jon Page jpage@capecod.net
Wed Feb 17 10:04 MST 1999


At 06:52 AM 2/17/99 -0600, you wrote:
>centers to an "acceptable range".  Right now, the action centers are
>"unacceptable".  I was thinking that being precise would aid in making the
>action to be more even from note to note, 
>>surrounding the instrument in question. I don't believe I've ever found
>>a piano whose flanges were consistantly at "optimal friction levels."
>And Ron, you bring up a good point.  I will think about it.  But until I
>decide differently, I would like to err on the side of precision!
> 

Short of owning a gage, proper reaming and burnishing of the bushings
helps in this regard. Generally I use a straight reamer and burnisher .001
smaller than the pin to be inserted. SIze, lube and burnish knuckles.

On a S&S last week I eased 4 gr off the friction by brushing and burnishing
the knuckles. The knuckle burnisher consists of a strip of wood which has
cork (gasket material) glued to it, it was on of the first 'tools' I garnished
off
the p-techlist when I first came on. A great way to massage in the powdered
Teflon. A handy strips of wood are the spacers in Renner USA shanks packages.

When going over new shanks the ones with the slightly higher friction can be
placed
towards the bass end of that shank 'tapered' execution section. Likewise if
the
Strike Weight were sampled the heavier shanks could also be placed more
towards
the
bass of that particular section. In general, a set will range from 1.6 to 2 gr
so it is helpful
to have shanks of similar SW adjacent to each other making the total SW more
controllable.

Regards, 

Jon Page
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. (jpage@capecod.net)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC