Adjusting wippen assist springs

[Phillip Ford]

>Hi Phil,
>
>I just finished a rebuild with so-called "turbo" springs. The main thing
>to shoot for is touch weight which is graduated from bass to treble.

Maybe.  What do you mean by touch weight?  Down weight?  Some people think 
that down weight should be the same for every key.  Others think it should 
be graduated from bass to treble.  Certainly the key front weight should be 
graduated from bass to treble.  But you can achieve this with wippens which 
are all the same WW or with wippens with WW graduating from bass to 
treble.  I was wondering what people chose to do in this regard and why.


>First reduce the spring tension so that the hammer falls back positively
>on the wippen. Some springs are so strong that the hammer will rise and
>stay up after checking.
>
>Rough regulate the action, and then reduce the spring tension further to
>your desired up and down weights. If your experience is like mine, you'll
>find yourself bending the springs so much that they hardly support the
>nylon cords they hook into.

On my initial experiments with attempting to figure out how much spring 
assist I was going to use I certainly reduced the spring strength 
significantly from where it was out of the box on the new whip.


>There's a lengthy article on wippen support springs on the RennerUSA web
>page by Chris Robinson. You might want to read it. He even suggest
>removing key weights and letting the springs determine the touch weight.
>
>Charles Faulk

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Phil Ford