Customizing a piano

[Willem Blees]

April fools was two months ago :)


Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT
Piano Tuner/Technician
Honolulu, HI
808-349-2943
www.bleespiano.com
Author of 
The Business of Piano Tuning
available from Potter Press
www.pianotuning.com


-----Original Message-----
From: A E <eve_ane at hotmail.co.uk>
To: Pianotech List <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 5:18 am
Subject: Customizing a piano


Hello all, 
 
I have recently crossed a customer who asked me to make some custom changes to his S&S model B. Such as raising the lyre height alittle (he says he has big feet and its unfomfortable for him to use the height set), so i found a couple of big guys with hairy palms to lift the piano, and put some larger casters in, which raised the piano by about almost an inch, which he said was just right.... That got me thinking... I'm 6ft tall (unfortunately) and one of the pianos I have, the keybed was so low i couldnt fit my knees underneath and it was a very... shall we say loosly uncomfortable experience playing it, as well as the same problem as the customer, i have biger feet than most and pedal height was unfomfortable, so i took up larger grand sized casters. The piano im talking about is a  43inch console which i wrote about before, (the one i fell in love with). But after i carried away on a spree with customizing it for myself, i changed entire regulation, let off is not set at about 3mm in bass and 5mm in trebble, basically as close as it will get without bouncing, put on a very 
tight set of hammer springs, and made a drastic change of puting in a set of hammers that normally would go into a 290 Bösey... Adjusting capstains i didnt leave the hammer resting on the hammer rest rail, instead, i adjusted them so that theyr about 5mm off the rail, in other words the butt is resting on the jack. (adjusted the action brakets to make sure hammers keep the same blow distance as if they were rested on the rail)... Shokingly the action became as heavy as on a new grand piano.. however, it has also became intensely sencitive, and repetition is fast and clean (atleast as far as i can play).... it almost feels like im playing my old Bosey 290... 
While i was as it i lubricated center pins and front rail pins with some oil for guns... yes for guns :-)... and i was astonished and what a diference this experiment made....
Now my question is, is making such experiments ok? and if so why dont most manufacturers today who make good quality uprights dont mess around more with the actions they make?
 
 
Alicia Evans
Philadelphia

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