Phil Ford wrote: >1. If it's bad practice, is there some explanation on offer? >2. Why would it reduce power delivery? The hammer is still >traveling in the same path as it was before - the angle of >shank to hammer doesn't affect that. If the hammer is >still striking perpendicular to the string why would any >reduction in power have occurred? Wouldn't the distance from strike point to hammer center be greater? (assuming you're going above horizontal, and hammer is perpendicular to string when it strikes - therefore angle between shank and hammer is > 90) So hammer would not take quite the same path. A slightly larger radius, I would think. Now whether it would matter...well it does increase your moment of inertia <G>. More practically, if you're measuring SWs, it would be a pain with the hammers not at 90 degrees to the shanks. >3. I don't see that the joint should be weaker. >If anything, having the shank not perpendicular to >the hammer would mean that the hole through the >hammer has to be a little longer, which would >seem to result in a stronger glue joint. Not weaker, but if it's not 90 degrees, that would put a twisting force on the joint at impact that's not there otherwise. >4. I can see that this would be true if the action was >designed to work with the shank parallel at contact, >and that drastically changing this would cause various >things like rest rails and letoff buttons to be in the >wrong places for the new shank position. But I'm >talking about an action that was specifically designed >to have the shank non-parallel at contact. In this >case everything could be positioned to work properly >so that regulation would not be compromised. Funny you should mention that. The piano I am working on with the too-long bore distance has drop screws all the way up (already posted about that) but I just figured out that it's also causing the hammers to be way too far off the rest cushions (Steinway - so there's no rail to adjust). -Mark
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