[pianotech] Square Grand Questions for Joe Garrett

[Terry Farrell]

Helllloooooooo Joe!  I thought I'd post this to the list in case anyone was interested.

I have the action back together, but find that the key dip for most of the keyboard is just over 1/4-inch (about 6.5 mm) - quite shallow. Is this the norm for these pianos? In the very low bass, the key dip increases to a bit more than 3/8" (about 10 mm) - reflecting the key ratio changes you described I presume.

I have to do something about the hammer blow distance in the high treble because the hammers hit the soundboard ribs when you try to install the action in the action cavity. The only way I can see to do that would be to use thinner hammer rest rail cloth or increase lost motion (without jacks in place, hammers moved enough to clear ribs). If 1/4" key dip is too shallow (I should thing that to be the case), seems to me that I should try some thinner hammer rest rail cloth - maybe even something that tapers in thickness - such that I have thinnest in high treble, less thin in treble, only somewhat thin in tenor and full thinckness that I have not in bass - basically, use the hammer rest rail taper thickness to get key dip to 3/8" (9.5 - 10 mm) over the entire keyboard - that should solve my hammer clearance problem also.

What do you think of this and what is the norm for key dip on these pianos?

And before you chastise me for not necessarily using an exact replacement for the hammer rail cloth, the cloth on the piano before I rebuilt it was pretty chewed up and worn out and I don't know that it was original anyway.  ;-)

Thanks for your input.

Terry Farrell