Key Whakker

[Ken Jankura]

Drop your arm, rotating from the elbow, as a dead weight from about 2",
while wearing a pounder of any weight, and you will hear fff if not louder.
No muscles involved, in fact the tough part is to keep from using muscles at
all as they are not needed. Your bicep lifts your arm , your arm falls, why
add another lb at the end of a rather long lever (for me anyway, always have
to but 'tall' shirts). Again, by flicking your wrist you can probably triple
the force of the already strong blow, if desired. I'm not saying lead shot
in a key whakker is not effective, just not necessary for me. Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: <Douglasmahard@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 7:38 AM
Subject: Re: Key Whakker


> In a message dated 02/06/2001 11:19:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> stan@pianoexperts.mb.ca writes:
>
> << By the way, Ken, the whole point of making it fairly heavy is to
>  minimize muscle strain.  You simply allow the weight of the tool to drop
>  on the keys from a few inches to provide consistant blows.  I suspect
>  more keys have been broken with the 'karate-chop' test-blow technique
>  that many feel is necessary for stability.
>
>  Regards,
>
>  Stan Kroeker
>  Registered Piano Technician >>
>
> Hi Stan,
>
> My hunch is that the consistency of the force of the blow, i.e. the weight
of
> the key pounder, leads to a more stable tuning. I want the pounder to do
the
> work not my muscles.
>
> Anyone finding they have to change the striking tip after awhile (maybe a
> year or two) because it gets dirty and/or flattened out? Like I mentioned
> previously, I use a bass hammer on the end of my brass rod, and have to
> change it for both reasons mentioned above.
>
> Doug Mahard
>
>
>