Happy end

[Fernando Rosas]

Hello everybody:

I want to share my last news regarding my request of early january this
year.  For those who don't remember, I asked for a technician to come to
Chile to solve my problem of heavy action in my almost new Yamaha C1 grand
piano.

Well, after many messages from and to there, I received an offer from Newton
Hunt to come to my home and help me in resolving my problem.  I decided to
take the risk due to 2 reasons: 1) I really like my piano and I thought that
it deserved an opportunity 2) Newton's knowledge and experience seemed very
good for me after the interchange of a lot of messages.  It looks like a
venture, and it was.  For me and for him.  For me, because I wasn't
absolutely sure about his skills, and, for him, because I didn't give him
any dollar before his arrival.  So, it was a trust founded agreement.  The
way agreements have to be done in a world we want to live in.

This is the technical part of the story:

Newton arrives to Santiago on february 21.  He begins taking measurements of
DW (58-60 gr. average) and UW (24-30 gr. average) and putting the figures
into a spreadsheet in order to check the equation of balance.  Figures are
too high for me and for him as well.  He starts polishing pins and capstans.
Looking at the bottom of the wippens  support cushions), Newton notices that
capstans are not pushing in the right place, too close to the center pin of
the wippen.  He explains me that the closer to the center pin, the lower the
leverage, I absolutely agree. In fact, the marks of the capstans are
visually not in the right place.  At the same time, he notices that the
action brackets can be moved in the key frame by drilling new holes, since
there is a gap for moving the action brackets forwards and backwards. By
moving it, we can reach the proper leverage.  Moving the action brackets
implies also that the whole keyframe has to be relocated in order to match
the right points for hammers to impact the strings (especially in the
treble). This issue explains more than a half of the problem, the rest is
lubrication (especially knuckles with teflon powder), regulation, to loosen
bushings, etc. After the job is done, figures are dramatically different, DW
in a 48g to 50g range and UW in a 26 to 32 range in average). The action
feels now absolutely different. Now is a normal action for this kind of
piano, and I find it's really comfortable with good dynamics control.  Now
the solution looks easy and obvious, but before it was a puzzle to solve. In
total, 5 days of work. Newton did it.

I really like the piano the way it feels now.  I don't know how it would
feel after applying the Stanwood system. Probably I will never know.  But I
don't believe it's necessary, since I was looking for a good and comfortable
Lexus, not for a Mercedes with turbo.

The personal part of the story is even better, Newton is a wonderful guy and
we spent a very nice time together. He also met local technicians and could
share experience and knowledge.

The intention of this message is to tell you how the story ends, since you
were so kind in sharing your knowledge with me and in giving me advice.
Fortunately, the story has a happy end. Thanks to Newton Hunt (especially of
course) and to everyone in this list who helped me.

Kind regards,

Fernando