Lever friction maths

John Delacour JD at Pianomaker.co.uk
Sat Jun 23 03:22:31 MDT 2007


At 3:07 am +0200 23/6/07, Danilo Perusina wrote:

>Hi! I posted this about twelve hours ago. Was it missed in the 
>hurry, or deemed erraneous/ too incomplete? So many references since 
>about how much increased friction actually affects the spring. I 
>post it again then, and please ignore if the whole calculation is 
>way out!:-)

The designers of the Herz-Erard action were extremely exact in their 
calculations, so little is gained by bringing in such very 
approximate calculations as yours to prove that having a stiff centre 
provides more work for the spring to do and puts the spring under 
more stress than it is designed for to do a certain task, which is 
obvious.  Incidentally I think you will find that the standard 
bearing point of the spring is 25 mm. from the centre and not 30 mm.

In the 35 years that I have been restoring grand actions my 
experience has been that the centre of the repetition lever is the 
centre least likely to be affected my time and use and although I do 
re-centre the repetition lever on most jobs, it is rarely actually 
necessary, and this lever is almost always free enough to fall by its 
own weight and not to need the weight of a large coin at the end to 
make it fall.  Bill Garlick or no, I see no advantage at all in 
adding what is in effect a friction damper to a spring that was not 
designed to be damped and which can be adjusted to to its work 
effectively without such damping.

At 8:36 pm -0700 21/6/07, David Love wrote:

>Pinning the rep lever tighter allows for speedier jack return as 
>well as more positive hammer rise since the spring doesn't need to 
>be set so close to the fail point.  Most of the benefit, in my view, 
>comes from the speedier jack return and thus faster repetition.

I don't see the logic of this.  No matter how much extra spring force 
is provided for the jack, the fly cannot return under the roller 
until the repetition lever has almost fully returned to its rest 
position, and this will occur no sooner with a heavy spring and a 
tight centre than with a lighter spring and a free centre.  Besides 
that, the jack needs very light spring pressure and will become 
increasingly noisy as the pressure is increased.  Many actions, 
especially American actions, provide a separate lighter spring for 
the jack in order that the heavy pressure required for the repetition 
lever in the bass shall not be applied also to the jack, which has no 
need of such pressure.



JD
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