[pianotech] action ratio

[Dale Erwin]

Lotta wisdom here Mr.Ron. We can learn alot from being microscopic and twisting about the numbers. I do, I have, I am but....
We can also learn much from Bill Spulocks statement to me some years ago now....He said "Just do good basic piano work and people will be happy" Quite true on most days.
No where did I put that learning curve?


Dale Erwin R.P.T.
Erwin's Piano Restoration Inc.
 Mason & Hamlin/Steinway/U.S. pianos
www.Erwinspiano.com
Phone: 209-577-8397

 
  





-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sun, Aug 26, 2012 9:03 pm
Subject: Re: [pianotech] action ratio


On 8/26/2012 10:18 PM, David Love wrote:
> And your point is suggestive of the fact that
> the bit of key travel is not really the critical factor.  Rather, it is
> jack clearance from some yet unknown starting point.  So aftertouch for
> the sake of that formula may be something other than what we think of as
> it relates to the thickness of the cardboard placed underneath the key.
> That’s the main point of the question.

I've watched these debates go by for a long time, and participated in a 
few here and there, but the year the convention was in Arlington, I 
tried something a little different. The piano was a Kimball, if I recall 
correctly, and it got nothing special in exotic action balancing, just 
parts selection and hammer tapering to meet weight ranges. I roughed in 
a couple of regulation passes, with my squishy front punchings and 
whatever my aftertouch spacer was at the time. I did blow and letoff by 
measurement and eyeball to even up, and dip by block with my letoff 
spacer, etc, and drop by feel. Then I made a pass changing the dip a 
couple of thousandths here and there strictly by feel with no block or 
spacer until I got it as even as I could. Then, a final pass tweaking 
letoff, also strictly by feel which made more improvement than I would 
have thought possible at that point. I had some people over to play it 
in the next week or so before it went home, and everyone remarked how 
even it felt, and the pianissimo control. One guy said he hadn't played 
this particular piece in years because he didn't have a piano with the 
pianissimo control necessary to do it. That felt particularly nice to hear.

At the convention some weeks later, I had lunch with Ed Foot at a local 
restaurant of a class level befitting our station in life, and told him 
the story. I actually feared for his blood pressure for a second there. 
He was horrified that I'd adjusted letoff as a final tweak. Well, yea, 
so was I, but I did it anyway and the folks who played the piano without 
hearing the story loved it. So the moral is, I guess, that there isn't 
one, and the "right" way is the way that works for who needs it to work, 
and the "wrong" way, however right, for everyone else, has to not offend 
the person or people who count in that situation. Both methods could 
well be anywhere from identical, to wildly divergent,and qualify as 
right or wrong - depending. So it ain't "whatchagonnado", it's 
"who'sitgonnaplease"? But you don't get to know that exactly until later.

The other moral is that there likely are no truly sacred parameters in 
anything.


There is more education
in questioning the accepted
than in accepting the questionable
	--- Ron N ---


 
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