[CAUT] S&S M Strike point

[John Delacour]

On 25 Dec 2012, at 03:43, Dale Erwin <erwinspiano at aol.com> wrote:

> I read your post and that wouldn't explain it as I custom bore all my hammer sets to plate heights minus center pin heights in each section. I'm quite fussy about it as N.Y Steinways are notorious for plate height un-even-ness thru out the string plane. My guess is that most of the German cousins has a better made plate.

Not in my experience.


>  Also even if my hammers were overstriking they would be going in the right direction for improved tone.  I pull the strike line towards the front of the piano not the back. I have done this countless times always with a superior result to a straight strike line. see attached picture

Yes, I see.  In that case what you are suggesting is that the in-design strike proportions for that section of the piano are not optimal, which I have no difficulty in believing, and in that case an over-striking hammer (i.e. bored too short) would actually improve matters from that point of view, though it would also lack a tiny bit of power.  You are speaking from more experience than I have with these Steinways.  I always work on the principle that the strike line is straight, and as a result, if the maker’s design is not optimal with regard to strike proportions, then nor will my results be, though in the two recent cases I mentioned the results were excellent to my ear and the ears of customers and colleagues.  Next time I’ll test your method.  By the look of it you reckon that the strike point is most wrong (i.e. most displaced away from the agraffe) in the middle of the third section up.  Is that correct?  It would be interesting next time actually to record the strike proportion for the whole scale.  All I did last time was measure it for the bass and at the tenor break.

I know that there are wide variations in the values different makers use for the strike proportion and also in where they begin the reduction and what formula they use for the steps.  I personally use a logarithmic formula but the old English makers generally took pre-cooked values at each octave and drew a curve by hand, which is probably just as good, so long as they use the right octave values.

Happy holidays!

JD