ORANGE COUNTY CHAPTER
June Meeting: (4th Monday)
Date: Monday, June 26, 2017
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Kim's Piano
10200 Beach Blvd., Stanton
Greetings to all Southern California piano technicians and readers of the PTG Southern California Newsletter.
In May we had a huge turnout for South Bay's Bruce Stevens. Bruce hauled a grand action all the way from his shop for an informative program on "Action evaluation for positive results." Often times you think you can just put some hammers and shanks on and all your problems will be solved. As we all know, you can be surprised by the problems that lurk in the darkness. Bruce started with a great explanation and demonstration of action analysis. Using a jig to determine the action ratio, he walked us through what could and may cause a heavy or sluggish action. Apparently many quality grands have pre-conditions too. Bruce explained many options on what can be done to solve action ratio problems, and he showed us how to use a couple of really cool jigs. Bruce also gave us a brief but very informative explanation of key weighting and removing lead when possible. Using Stanwood principles, he has developed a weigh off technique that speeds up the process and at the same time produces a smooth even touch throughout the keyboard. It helps that Bruce has forty years of experience - you can't just make this stuff up.
Chapter Business: We also had an election. The Chapter officers for the next
year are as follows:
President: David Stoneman
Vice President: Melissa
Weidner
Treasurer: Diane Vehoski
Secretary: Steve Blasyak
This month Don Mannino will host out meeting at Kim's Piano in Stanton for a class on “Grand Damper System Service.” In his program Don will unravel the mysteries of servicing damper systems in Kawai grand pianos and other similarly designed pianos. He will eliminate the awkwardness of servicing and replacing the damper tray blocks. Don will discuss in detail how to achieve a quick and accurate regulation of the damper lift from the key and pedal, regulating the sostenuto, plus much more! Don will even include demonstration of trimming trichord wedges to reduce noise when lifting. If you’ve had difficulties working on grand dampers, don’t miss this class!