All, I made a statement w/o checking the truth of it. I now know that I will NOT be teaching in K.C., so I'm including a detailed explanation of what I do to "Improve Spinets". I hope this will suffice. Here it is: I consider that a loss for PTG, since I consider this class a winner. I was willing to go the extra mile for that one. (Sigh!) I don't know if I could do the class at your Chapter, because that would mean I'd have to haul my Granddaughter's piano up there.<G> It requires another Acrosonic to compare to. One that has not had anything done to it, except tuning. I'll tell you about the concept(s): 1. It is really impossible to, truly, regulate a spinet, as they exist. There are a few exceptions to this. Those spinets that were made by the upscale piano manufacturers of the late 30's and 40's. Those spinets, hade ivory key tops and were really manufactured with care. One of the items that was "lost" or "left out" was key leads. The previously mentioned spinets HAD key leads, (I've seen them and I suspect you have too.) The manufacturers were always looking for cheaper ways to make these pianos, because they were the "Leaders" of sales. One of the first things to go, were the key leads, i.e. balanced touch. The poor touch that most had, because of the omitted lead, got the customers into the store(s) and then the sales people did the bait and switch and the bumping up! What I am doing, on a pretty regular basis, is going through the actions and keys very carefully. Then weighing off the keys, once the basic action basics are within specs...friction as well as pinning and proper alignment and travel are the things I pay attention to. Another thing is to make sure that the damper systems are up to snuff. Most, not all, of the late 50's, 60's & 70's spinets had really crappy damper felt. Replacing with good felt and a good rebulation makes all the difference in damping these little beasts.<G> Finally, After all action and key work has been done, THEN the action can be properly regulated...WITHOUT the main problem: the added lost motion that we all have been told is necessary to regulate these pianos so that the jack will get under the butt! NOT! If the keys have between 1 to 3 grams of back weight, there is absolutely no reason to leave lost motion in the regulation!<G> (BTW, I'm using the system fixtures of the Fandrich/Rhodes setup that Jurgen sells. It's ideal for this. And,...no you don't need the computer program!<G>) Try it, you'll really like the way that spinet will play. One final thing. There are many spinets that are NOT worth the effort. The ones that I would not do this procedure on, would be those with the plastic elbows. Acrosonics, Story & Clarks and a few others that have "advanced type" of key/action interaction are what I'm talking about. Also, many console pianos can benefit from this proceedure. Best Regards to all, Joe Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon) Captain, Tool Police Squares R I -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100926/4252174b/attachment.htm>
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