Relocating capstans

[Jim_Harvey@yca.ccmail.compuserve.com]

     Whoa, Tom!

     I won't suggest that your capstans are improperly located; indeed they
     may be.

     I _will_ suggest that you don't go up a one-way street. If the piano
     is an 80's S&S as you indicate, and the touch is like playing on the
     edge of a tabletop, you may want to investigate action spread and/or
     other part and action geometry/placement parameters; eliminate other
     areas as possibilities, then reconsider the capstans.

     Think of it this way. In a factory environment, if a piano doesn't
     work by the end of the line, they don't just push it overboard like a
     failed aircraft on a carrier. Somehow that piano is made to work,
     often in the fastest manner possible. In trying to meet production
     and get pianos out the back door, sometimes the method of expediting
     treats the effect instead of the cause. Technicians are sometimes
     just as guilty of erroneous diagnostics and repairs, so I'm not
     throwing darts at factory folks.

     In short, just because capstan placement is a recent hot topic, don't
     fall into the trap.

     Regards,

     Jim Harvey
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Our school has a Steinway B from the 1980's  which has terrible
downweight/upweight problems. The keys in the bass are full of leads, and
we are still getting downweight between 65-70 grams in that section with
barely any upweight at all, improving to 60 grams in the treble with
marginal upweight.

Upon examining things, we discovered that the capstan on note #1 is hitting
the heel of the capstan almost at the front of the heel instead of in the
middle, tapering to almost normal on note #88. We tried changing out
wippens with several different styles from our kit, but the one which
worked the best was the original teflon wippen.