[pianotech] key leveling with a curve

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, Del,

At 08:41 AM 10/14/2010, you wrote:
>While I was visiting the factory in the 
>mid-1970s­nothing official, just a week to 
>wander around, looking and listening, taking 
>pictures and generally getting in the way­I 
>noticed that one of the leveling sticks were 
>warped. These were the spruce sticks used as 
>straight-edges by the key levelers. It did not 
>look like they had been cut that way; but how 
>could one really tell for sure. (I didn’t see 
>them all so I have no way of knowing if there 
>were any others sharing this warp.)

What?  You?  Get in the way???...never happen!

>I mentioned this to someone­Joe Bisceglie, if 
>memory serves­who, at first, hadn’t seemed to 
>have noticed and wasn’t sure just why this 
>should be. Later I was told that someone in the 
>action department had explained the leveling 
>stick was “crowned” because the keys would 
>settle during the first few months and they 
>wanted to be sure they ended up flat, not 
>concave. Nothing was said at the time about 
>there being a matching crown in the keybed. And 
>in those days I worked on a lot of Steinways of 
>all ilks and can assure you that their keybeds 
>were all over the place; some flat, some concave 
>and, indeed, others with a slight crown.

This was pretty much what everyone said..but, 
I've always taken that with a grain of salt (who, 
me?) because, without exception, the guys from 
whom I'd heard this version the most were the 
ones least likely to be doing anything with 
pianos outside of work.  That is, I'm still not 
at all sure that they had learned that bit on 
their own, or were relying on others.

>I was never quite sure if what they had told him 
>was the truth­that is, actual design and 
>policy­or if it was something someone made up to 
>cover for the fact that the sticks were warped.

Curiously (to me, anyway), I have in my shop a 
key-leveling tool (not exactly a stick, but, 
rather a tool or jig, made out of a piece of 
poplar roughly 4" wide, 3/4" thick, and 
keyboard-width long that is cut with a handle cut 
out of the middle of the back, from which it 
tapers out to the corners (slowly at first, and 
then more quickly in the last several inches); 
and, importantly for this discussion, the working 
face of the tool, still 3/4" thick 
throughout,  is precisely 1/16" higher in the 
"middle" than it is at either end.  Joe B. gave 
it to me right off his bench the last year that 
he was there as factory foreman.  It even has his 
signature...pretty banged up from years of use, but still legible.

>It always seemed to me more likely it was one of 
>those little mistake things that just happens in 
>production and that, after it’s happened enough 
>times and over a long enough period of time, 
>turns into department folklore gradually 
>becoming one of those little production secrets 
>every company has and eventually becoming a 
>locked-in-stone company policy requiring its own CNC machining center.

Agreed!  Whatever the ultimate source (assuming 
that there is such a thing for this factoid), 
Joe, along with everyone else I worked with on 
the line, regulated to that standard throughout his career.

Does tend to keep the conversation going, doesn't it?

>Still, my own leveling stick is “warped” pretty much the same way.

Indeed so....

Thanks, Del...I've kept Joe's "stick" more as a 
memento, rather than as a working tool...so it 
tends to slide out of memento-land with increasing frequency.

Best.

Horace



Delwin D. Fandrich

>Piano Design & Fabrication
>620 South Tower Avenue
>Centralia, Washington 98531 USA
>del at fandrichpiano.com
>ddfandrich at gmail.com
>Phone  360.736.7563
>
>From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org 
>[mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Horace Greeley
>Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 6:08 AM
>To: pianotech at ptg.org
>Subject: Re: [pianotech] key leveling with a curve
>
>
>
FWIW, in all the years I've been picking 
>brains, books, archives, patents, you-name-its, 
>about "things piano", this is one of the ones 
>for which I've _never_ found an answer that 
>really makes sense or holds up under serious 
>scrutiny...much less practical application.
>
>Best.
>
>Horace
>
>  P.S. - But seriously, folks, if anyone out 
> there _does_ have some _substantive_ 
> documentation, I really would love to see 
> it...at this stage, one less mystery in life would be most welcome...hg
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