Don't you love it, Jon? The dear, sweet boy is THANKING US before he knows how much trouble we are getting him into! J Chuck, you will need a hammer boring jig. I would recommend a jig that is supported at both ends so the jig does not flex when drilling the hammers. Mine is a Renner (from Renner USA) Good boring bits. You already have seen the discussion. Jon is right about ordering the Overall Hammer Length too long. OAL is determined by adding the hammer bore and the tail length. Always order your OAL 5 mm. or more too long. That way you have a 50% chance of getting hammers that aren't too short. Better still, order your hammers with a universal molding - way long, and no prep. No tail curve, no cove, no taper, no bore, no nuttin'. Roll your own from there! I do a tapered bore when needed. If it's within 1 mm in a section, I'll bore one distance. The Steinway A I am completing varied 5 mm from one end of the tenor section to the other (pretty unusual for a Steinway to vary this much). I ended up tapering the bore in that section. The tail length I set at 1", so when I installed the back checks, I tapered their heights at 5 different measures in that section. Jon, I thought I was the only person who arced his tails after I hung the hammers. One advantage of doing it this way is that the tails are straight when you are hanging the heads, which makes it a tad easier to get a nice hanging job. I made an adjustable jig to insert the hung hammer into to curve them. I would cut off the excess shank at the same time when I had the shanks off the rails. Six of one and a half dozen of another, Chuck. Either way is fine. Chuck, since you have the WNG shanks and back checks, I would encourage you to go online to the WNG website and download the PDF for setting up and drilling for the back checks. You can print that out to read. It will give you an exact idea of what you will need to have in terms of tools to both properly bore and place your backchecks in relation to the hung hammer, and the tail curve radius needed and the jig for it. The WNG back check system is a very precise one that will check very, very well when done correctly; but it uses a different tail radius than you might see otherwise. It is intended to be used as a complete system. Most of the jigs you will need for hammer prep, you can make yourself if you are so inclined. I made by tail tapering jig to do a full length side taper on the table saw Spurlock will sell you a very nice one. You can make a simple jig to cove the tails with a forstner bit on your drill press. Mine is set up to work in the oscillating spindle sander. I weigh my hammers and shanks too. I think Jon is talking about the Stanwood protocol for hammer and key weights. Save that for another day, you're in enough trouble already. We are sucking you into high level action rebuilding, where all the details are important. What is exciting about the WNG system to me is the freedom to set up the action geometry correctly - the system is modular, so the capstan heights and location can be precisely set, same for the knuckle location on the shanks. Analyze the layout of the action, plug the capstan holes and relocate them if needed to best set up that individual action. Custom bore the hammers to that piano, set the tail lengths and back check heights, weigh off the action to a custom protocol like Stanwood or Fandrich. You will end up with an action that plays like the best dream you ever had, smooth as buttah, and amazingly even and consistent. By the way, I was supposed to report back to the Forum about my use of the different capstan heel for the sharps than the naturals (Sharps 2 mm. taller) I think it is the real deal. Amazingly similar feel between the sharps and naturals, definitely different than the old way. It's a little disconcerting to see the sharp capstans sitting so low, but that is where they need to be. I do aftertouch priority, so what I did for sharp key height was this: Put a 400 gram weight on the sharp in the down position and add front rail punchings until the top of the sharp sits exactly a penny thickness above the neighboring natural in the up position (so the sharp doesn't bury). Then add or subtract punchings at the balance rail until it just trips through let off with a .040 punching on the front rail. You will have regulated these test notes for hammer blow, let off, drop, etc. Do these end samples, support them, and level the other sharps to these measures. Will the players find it disconcerting because it feels different? I don't know. It's definitely a better different though. Come on in, Chuck. The water's fine! Bring your rubber ducky, too! Will From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jon Page Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2010 4:09 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] WNG parts with Schaff (Abel) hammers? >... I'll do some research and order my hammers undrilled. I order them a little longer than the tallest bore + tail length. This way I can cut the tails to the same length and still have a tapered bore. All too often I've seem a long bore with a shorter tail. Bore first, then taper. I hang them before I arc the tail. But before hanging, I separate the shanks by weight and match them to the weight of the hammers. The final weigh-off is done after they're hung and arc'd. I also measure the knuckle height to get the odd ones at the extremes. -- Regards, Jon Page -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100626/19a128fc/attachment.htm>
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