Action Regulating Bench

[Michael Magness]

On 10/30/07, Willem Blees <wimblees at aol.com> wrote:
>
> If you can find it, bowling lanes are great for this.
>
> Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT
> Piano Tuner/Technician
> Honolulu, HI
> Author of
> The Business of Piano Tuning
> available from Potter Press
> www.pianotuning.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jack Houweling <jackhouweling at dccnet.com>
> To: Pianotech List <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Sent: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 6:40 pm
> Subject: Action Regulating Bench
>
>  I am building an action regulating bench for my shop and would like to
> hear some suggestions what other may have.
> I am building the base out of maple and want to know what material is best
> for the table top, and
> what is most practical for table dimensions, height, width, and length?
>
> Sincerely,
> Jack Houweling
>
> ------------------------------
> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users.
> It has removed 7501 spam emails to date.
> Paying users do not have this message in their emails.
> Try SPAMfighter <http://www.spamfighter.com/len> for free now!
>
>  ------------------------------
> Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail<http://o.aolcdn.com/cdn.webmail.aol.com/mailtour/aol/en-us/index.htm?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000970>
> !
>
>

Hi Jack,

I used to use a regulating TABLE that a friend of mine built, it was on
wheels so it could be moved out of the way when space was needed for other
things. It was about 5 feet long probably 3 feet deep and he had set it
quite high, guessing I'd say 36 " perhaps a little higher, so that you could
sit in a chair comfortably to level keys, set your hammer line, most of the
stuff you have to sit on the floor to do in a grand.
The top was a double thickness of particleboard supported by a framework of
2x6's with crossmembers with a sheet of 1/4" plate glass over it so it was
dead flat! I imagine that glass cost him a bundle. He had also taken an old
Damp-Chaser rod cut it in half and attached it to either end of the table.
He had stretched string trimmer line, bright red, easy to see, between them
for setting hammer lines, they attached to a radiator hose clamp that went
around the rod and could be raised or lowered as needed
When I build mine( my shop is finally in the finishing stages but I'm
still using basement space at this writing) I thought I would use torsion
box construction. If you aren't familiar with it google the words torsion
box and a wealth of options will come up, here's a link to an Adobe
drawing   http://www.geocities.com/bawanewsletter/jun02/torsionbox1.pdf
as you can see it is just a bunch of small square box like structures placed
together which when attached together with a top"skin" and bottom "skin"  is
stiff, flat and stable. If the top and bottom skins were MDF you would have
the added advantage of not having a great deal of variance between dry and
humid times. Once constructed you could place a second piece of plywood,
masonite(my choice) or something else on top of it to protect it from
actions sliding around. It's a little more labor intensive but I believe the
end result will be worth it, at least for me.
Good luck with yours,
Mike
-- 
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing
is to not stop questioning.-- Albert Einstein



Michael Magness
Magness Piano Service
608-786-4404
www.IFixPianos.com
email mike at ifixpianos.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20071030/d18b9a8d/attachment.html