[pianotech] S&S "D" Keys with Attachments on To

[David Love]

The basis is that they flex too much and you lose power at the upper end.
When Steinway went to the accelerated action they removed the lower shoe in
order to make room for the bearing.  On a D, in particular, with extra key
length that reduction in height adds unwanted flex and it is easily
demonstrated as well as felt on hard blows with a delay between key
depression and hammer string contact.  Restoring the original height of the
key with an elongated top shoe also restores much of the lost stiffness.
Keys can be too stiff, I suppose, but it is not likely to happen in this
situation.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Richard Brekne
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 12:25 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] S&S "D" Keys with Attachments on To

I suppose given the obvious pointer to the keys, most folks would get 
that far and not bother looking further as one would expect to see more 
of the same in anycase. Reasonable enough. What puzzles me is that with 
such procedures there seems to be no real data of any kind which 
indicates what degree of key stiffening is needed in any given type of 
action.... yet folks go trudging on in and stiffen away seemingly 
without further ado... good woodworking or not.

The obvious question is how does one ascertain when any given level of 
key stiffness is mooted by the rest of the actions lack of "stiffness" ? 
For that matter, we dont really know much about if and when a key 
becomes <<too stiff>>.  Folks more or less just see if they are bendable 
to some degree they cant really explain how they arrived at, and just 
start adding key material.

Misunderstand me correctly.  I'm not saying that keys never need to be 
stiffened.... but I do question the basis on which this is done or not. 
Personally, I've never run into an instrument where this was anything 
close to a <<must do>>


Cheers
RicB


    What puzzles me is that you are able to tell the difference in this
    case between a proper job and a botch, and yet, in the case of the
    totally non-stellar eyes on the bass strings you brought up in the
    last thread, after 40 years of experience with properly made eyes
    you were unable to see that these were quite unacceptable in every
    possible way.

    JD