popsicle stick engineering

[RicB]

Hi again Clark and others

Been thinking on this, along with reading Kents , Dales and Jons posts.  
Dale said something that struck a note and I'd like to go with that a 
bit if I may.

    "Whenever you find short dip & long blow the action  ratio is high"

If you stop and think about this for a second its perhaps not so trivial 
as it at first may seem.  Dip and blow, along with letoff  and 
aftertouch are critical determinants in getting an action to feel and 
respond acceptable.  And there is not one heck of a lot of manuvering 
room really before things get weirded out.  Personally, I opt for 
keeping dip between 9.8 and 10.2, blow at 46-47 and letoff between 
1.5-2.5 mm graduated from the bass and aftertouch on the light side..  
With these in mind it doesnt take much thought to realize that in order 
to keep these in line you dont have all that much manuvering room. 
Assuming we take balance rail pin positions as given... you have 
basically knuckle size and placement and capstan position to effect 
changes with.

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    Hi, All!  I have been dealing with a S&S B that I found with up to 9
    leads in some of the low tenor keys.  All the parts had been
    replaced with Renner to get rid of the Teflon flanges, but it was
    heavy, sluggish, and just a chore to play for long.  I am not all
    that familiar with the Stanwood protocols, but as time goes on, the
    concept gets more and more attractive.  What I found, was that I had
    to shorten the dip, lengthen the blow, to get it less laborious to
    play.  So, what I suspect , is that the capstan placement is
    incorrect for the parts used, or was incorrect from the start?  They
    also had the damper timing late to try to make it feel lighter, so
    late that the hammer almost hit the strings before it lifted.

    Ric, your comments on the more creative combinations of blow, dip,
    etc hit a chord with me on this beast. There were too many leads in
    from the factory, and you could tell be looking that some more were
    added with the new parts, as they did not look factory at all,  so
    the problems just got worse, evidently with the parts replacement.
    Clark A. Sprague, RPT