SOUTH BAY CHAPTER
No Meeting in July
Our June meeting featured Orange County PTG RPT Randy Woltz, previewing his national convention class, "How to Hot Rod Your Piano." He demonstrated the reasonably short process of converting your standard living room piano into a performance piano with a faster and lighter touch. Randy noted, “Always under-promise and over-deliver (just say you'll improve it).”
On Randy’s first successful ‘hot-rodding” he added wippen springs, moved capstans, removed some key weight, lacquered hammers.
☻Are hammers above rest cushions? Regulation must be in good shape before
evaluating whether to modify anything.
☻Isolate parts one by one (key, wippen,
jacks, hammer flange, action centers, dip, quality, key leading) to decide where
to focus your efforts.
☻Thoroughly clean, lube (watch and listen for
friction), ease if necessary. Use a steam pot or iron to downsize a bushing, use
a caul to keep shape.
☻Check down-weight. If it's too heavy and you don't
want to modify weighting or geometry, sell the touch-rail system to the
customer.
☻Otherwise, a quick geometry fix can be to shift capstans (WNG has
a cool tool for drilling out the capstans). Remove capstans, fill holes, sketch
a line just forward of previous holes, punch a starter hole with a nail, drill
new hole, replace capstans. Cannot be done with a hand drill. This is a
three-hour job.
☻Cutting the balance rail punchings in half was another
suggestion. Place the half punchings on action side (away from the pianist) of
balance pins, add drop of glue under each key, carefully replace keys and press
onto balance rail. Check key height and dip after this change.
☻Remove leads
and replace (maybe one less).
☻Adding a wippen spring is very complicated and
time intensive, so just change a sample key first to get an idea of the benefits
before doing the entire set.
☻Randy surprised us by telling us he uses spray
lacquer from woodworking store (not hardware store) to harden hammers, and
applies an extra spray in top octave as needed. Lightly sand hammers after it
has dried two days to get rid of the surface crust.
☻The goal (for Randy) is
a 48 gram down weight in the center of the keyboard.
☻With uprights, the
spring's the thing! Hammer return springs (should just gently push the hammer),
jack springs, damper springs (make sure they're not too strong, or move spoon
for later lift). Note: on bi-chord dampers (double-wedges), dampers should lift
higher. Moving capstans forward (towards pianist) reduces key down weight. Some
regulation adjustments will be necessary after shifting capstans.
Note: Look at Journals from February 2015 & June 2012 for upright touch weight adjustments.
Thank you, Randy, for packing so much valuable information into such a short class.
Due to the national convention, there will not be a chapter meeting in July. Please check the August Newsletter for information regarding a potential social gathering in August. Enjoy your summer!