older kawai whippen assist springs

[Dean May]

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I would take some weight out of the hammers. For every gram you take out
you'll reduce downweight by 5-6 grams. Plus what really makes a piano
feel like a heavy touch is the inertial weight, not static down weight.
Adjusting the whippen springs will not reduce the inertial weight. Only
removing actual weight will do this, which taking weight out of hammers
does.
 
How do you take weight out of hammers? Get a tail shaping jig from
Spurlock. Cut an arc on your disc sander. You can also taper the hammer
sides on the disc sander. Get a drug dealers scale off ebay that
measures to the tenth of a gram (cost about $30) to precisely keep track
of how much weight you are taking off each hammer. You don't want to
take too much off or your upweight will go too low and the action will
seem sluggish. 
 
The last Young Chang I did reduced static down weight by 10+ grams (from
58-65 down to around 50). I even took one lead weight out of each key to
bring up the weight up a little. That's weight out of the hammer and
lead weight out of the key. All in all I took about 4+ lbs of weight out
of the action (that translates into inertial weight reduction) and the
results were phenomenal. The customer had some serious arthritis issues
and I needed to make a dramatic reduction.
 
I still have a lot to learn on balancing an action but I am really happy
with what I've been able to accomplish. My understanding is that if you
don't take any actual weight out of the action you will not reduce the
inertial weight, and that is what really makes an action feel heavy.
 
Dean
Dean May             cell 812.239.3359
PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272
Terre Haute IN  47802
 
-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of TOM DRISCOLL
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:41 PM
To: Pianotech
Subject: older kawai whippen assist springs
 
List,
    I'm servicing an older (1970 ish) Kawai grand tomorrow with very
heavy touch.
    I'll be doing the usual ,i.e. easing tight balance rail holes , key
bushings, polish and lube keypins , capstans, lube knuckles, rep levers,
jacks , regulate----yada yada yada.
    
    My question is about these whippen assist springs-- I'm prepared to
experiment and figure it out, but am wondering if anybody has some
guidelines-tips for regulating these.
    Thanks and best wishes to all for a safe holiday.
    Tom Driscoll RPT
    

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