At 10:38 PM -0700 5/29/02, David Love wrote:
>I am not trying to be critical of Stanwood's ideas en masse, his ideas have
>helped me plenty. But I am unconviced by the high strike weight, low
>inertia and assist spring idea.
I don't buy it either. A year ago I was doing a full Stanwood
installation on a D, so I picked the three people among the
installers who I thought would have settled this question for
themselves with their long and constant experience. "Am I going to
find a dramatic increase in tone by weighting up the hammers?" The
first one told me, "Anything David says is true", which I took to be
the company line. The second said no, and the third said if I was
going to be looking for such an effect on tone, I should wait until
the hammers had a year or two of play.
I think David is in the position of a pioneer, eager to explore
what's made possible by the new Metrology and the re-introduced WAS
(now with adjusting screw). Certainly it was his boat which first
landed on this shore and he's gone the furthest into this new
territory. He has charted it with hundreds of before/after studies on
pianos, along with the response of the pianists. Quite likely the
high SW, low inertia and WAS is an idea which will fall by the side
of the road, as did stock removal on the wippen body and the friction
tune screw.
I happen to think that trading lead for springs is a good idea, as
soon as you separate it from "hammers-on-steroids".
>Yes. Recently, a pianist with such an arrangement complained of "bouncy
>keys" and the concomitant "slow to return" problem. Lowering the tension of
>the assist spring did not solve the problem adequately. This piano did have
>heavy hammers and the pianist did complain about the tone. But you would
>think that a heavy hammer would mitigate the bouncy key and slow to return
>problem. It didn't.
"Slow to return" sounds like low UW, but if backing off on the WAS
didn't help (by raising UW/BW/DW) then complaints might have been due
to something other than the WAS. The extra SW ordinarily would
mitigate the bouncy key and slow to return problem, but not if that
extra SW was counter-balanced by the WAS.
At 1:51 PM -0700 5/29/02, David Love wrote:
>Of course that's redesigning that action. As I pointed out, this was an
>unusual and non standard specific request by a pianist with a physical
>problem. I was merely pointing out that the assist spring had its place in
>this instance. I had spent a great deal of time setting up the action and
>balancing it to what I considered a low (34) balance weight to accommodate
>her. It played beautifully and effortlessly, I thought. But it wasn't
>light enough for her. So I had to introduce an assist spring. It was the
>only reasonable choice. And she understood the extent of what I was doing.
I fully sympathize with the pianist's physical problems, and your
solution, as you say was the only reasonable choice. Alot of David
Stanwood's early work came in from pianists with such physical
problems, which allowed him to study the relationship between poorly
assembled actions and these physical problems.
>> In reviewing the design of the Steinway action, I think we should not
>> hold them responsible for not guessing a hundred years ago, in the
>> days of light hammers, 16mm knuckle mounting distance and 7:1
>>Strike Balance Ratios, that a hundred years later, the genuinereplacement NY
>> Steinway hammers would be far too heavy for the earlier keyboards.
>
>I'm not sure what your point is here. I'm not holding Steinway responsible
>for a design that they themselves have modified with lower SBR's.
I was just distinguishing between the two problems you had mentioned
with the implementation of the Steinway grand action design, the
(until recently, perennial) wandering of KRs and the historic rise of
their SWs.
>As I said, I think the basic design is a good one which, when
>executed properly,
>works quite well. I'm not sure that a 7:1 ratio was the intention. I have
>seen many old Steinways with 16 mm knuckles and .48 KR that end up with a
>SBR around 6:1. That can certainly accomodate a hammer of todays dimension,
>albeit on the light side.
I agree. Right now, I'm putting new shanks and flanges on two
Steinway Os, one a 1908 and the other a 1922. Both KRs are below .50.
(And yes, David's metrology has been a big help to me too. Both SWs
(NY Steinway on Hamburg shanks) are high, but one more so, so it goes
in the keyboard with the slightly lower KR. I could have put in
heaver SWs with the higher KRs, as an experiment to find the
pianists' preferences as to inertia (ie., higher BW and lower FW),
but decided not to. The two Os belong to the same summer chamber
music program.)
The fact aside that Steinway KRs will vary no mater what the year of
production, such variation was much easier to deal with with the SWs
of a hundred years ago.
>I think it's true that a good design doesn't mean much if it can't be
>consistently executed. But that is no reason to condemn the design. I
>think the two things can be separated, and generally are. One engineer
>comes up with the design, another one often figures out how to put it
>consistently into production.
If what you're saying is that when Steinway actions happen to work
out because of a happy combination of SW and KR, that constitutes a
well designed action, then I'll respectfully disagree. It made be a
well designed action, but the engineer(s) who fail to notice that the
design as issued by R&D dept, is not being consistently installed
haven't done their job well enough
>Steinway lacked (and still lacks) consistency
>in production. Of course I love them for this. Fixing their problems is a
>significant chunk of my income.
I'll raise a sarsasparilla to that.
>In trading lead for springs, just because too much inertia creates a
>sluggish feeling action doesn't mean we should aim for the lowest possible
>inertia. Inertia just might play a vital role in a certain type of tactile
>feedback that the pianist needs to feel in control. The best feeling
>actions to me had some lead in them.
Agreed, but this might be more a matter of what we have grown used to
rather than what actually works best. The latter has to be uncovered
by trail and error (in undisclosed proportions).
>In another case, a classic "new hammers old geometry arrangement" had the
>problem "fixed" by a set of assist springs. Here a relatively heavy hammer
>(NY Steinway) on an original dimension knuckle (15.5?) created an undue
>amount of friction in the action which, of course, was unaffected by the
>addition of assist springs. Although the balance weight was reduced by
>virtue of adding the springs, a 38 BW still resulted in a 56 DW and 20 UW in
>the middle of the piano. As you would expect, it felt sluggish even with
>controlled FW's. I can't really blame the assist springs for high friction.
>But the approach itself was wrong.
Why would one blame the WAS for the high friction? The WAS's upward
pressure through the rep lever onto the knuckle might be a measurable
quantity, but would it be any more than the upward pressure supplied
by the FWs doing the similar counterbalancing? The source for the
friction is in the combination of the high SWs and the short knuckle
mounting distance. The friction applies itself at the
knuckle/replever, and at the capstan/heel.
My feeling is that we have to study the matter of WASs very
carefully, to isolate analysis of their effect from the other effects
possible among the things which can be done to an action.
At 8:26 AM -0400 5/30/02, JIMRPT@AOL.COM wrote:
>Do not simply dismiss the Whippen Assist Spring thingees, for to do so would
>remove a valuable tool in our bag of 'tricks'
>................................................
>...................................................this business 'is' 90%
>perception you know!! :-)
>My view.
> Jim Bryant (FL)
Amen to the Reverend Alligator.
Mr. Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.
"I'll play it and tell you what it is later...."
...........Miles Davis
+++++++++++++++++++++
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC