Noisy Young Chang

[John Delacour]

At 8:39 PM -0800 11/16/01, Susan Kline wrote:

>How about making the backrail cloth narrower, by putting an 
>underlayer of felt under the middle, like some nice old grands had? 
>Do you have enough leeway to make the backrail cloth thicker by 
>adding a second layer?

Even if he appears to have the 'leeway', there are many consequences 
to raising the specified depth of the backtouch and far more work 
would ensue from doing this than from achieving exactly the right 
backtouch height using softer materials.

The really nice really old grands and uprights had the backtouch 
built up of several strips of a hairy open-textured baize laid on the 
back rail and covered with a wider strip of boxcloth glued to the 
back rail along both edges.  This gives a very absorbent but 
resilient backtouch.  This baize is no longer to be had, but strips 
of 1 mm boxcloth can be used instead.  I quite often do it this way, 
though it is a longer job.

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Ron N. mentioned sizing the balance holes, and certainly a loy of 
noise can come from the keys jumping up and down on the pins and no 
key-keeper can eliminate this altogether.

The back rail should also be tapped to make sure it is perfectly flat 
on the key-bottom.

JD