shank strike weights

[Ric Brekne]

Hi folks

Just finished setting up an action today for hammer replacement. Yamaha 
C6.  New origional Yamaha shanks going on with a set of Andres hand 
picked Wurzens from Renner.  I always check shank strike weights now and 
this job illustrates nicely why its a good idea.

The shank Strike weights showed a high of 2.06 grams and a low of 1.40  
That works out to about 3.5 grams of static down weight at the key.  The 
hammers themselves had a few big jumps here and there and started off at 
a mid medium curve with a nice bulge up to top medium in the mid treble 
and again in the mid high treble.  All  in all I could have ended up 
with a real interesting set of combined strike weights had I not spent 
the time matching shank sw's to hammer dead weights. 

I shudder to think of all the sets of hammers just plaskered onto 
randomly selected shanks without regard to touch weight at all. Grin... 
I shudder to even think of all the jobs I have done this way in the 
past.  Just got a call the other day from a frantic fellow up north 
who'd just replaced a set of hammers and wondered why all of a sudden 
his touch weight was so much heavier.... and I have to wonder why this 
whole subject matter is not better dealt with in the various forms of 
piano education, testing proceedures, etc etc.  Heck... even now the ptg 
test doesnt really cover this bit... even tho hammer changes on grands 
is about one of the most usual jobs for techs to start selling customers.

Ah well... all in a days work.  Hasnt been much basic Stanwood 
discussion for a while.  Too bad really that he decided to burden the 
whole idea with patents instead of just selling finished products to 
techs that dont want to bother with it themselves.  I have a feeling 
Touchweight Design would far more widespread then it is now had it just 
been public domain. 

Cheers
RicB