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the arcing with one circle does not provide even checking height the pressure depend of the touch then . but checking low when playing strong is not a problem. the key is more compressing the punching and raise faster .
the checking surface may be large enough so the leather does not wear fast. still not a very large surface anyway, but a definitive second slant at the end of the tail ( I make it less pronounced than the gig and by hand.)

So Keith,
Could this new WNG action be installed in say, an 1890ies Steinway upright? Any more info as to when they will actually be coming out with it? It's been a while in the making...

Greetings ,

Is there a way to correct or regulate the shank's stiffness ?

Did you try to scrap the material ? There are a few notes that could be made less stiff in my opinion.

The action I saw was functioning well, but made the piano somehow noisy. My friends have also hard time to move the flange for spacing, they tend to come back when the screw is tightened. I suppose a sanding paper strip would be useful on the rail.

A little lack of tension on the whippen heel cloth robs some directness in touch, will compress in time probably.

The extra light jack is surprising. The action is not regulated yet so I could not really test it in its final condition.

I am not sold on your backchecks, they are too small and not tense enough , this robs some firmness sensation at chacking time (to me the backchecks are a tone element) .

I hope I will test the action once finished next week.
The absence of reaction (resonance) from the action composants is surprising, (but there is a lot of impact tone without a definite character) now if the instrument can provide enough warmness by itself this will not be a problem, I hope so as the instrument is a fine but small Bluethner, usually an instrument that could accept a lot of power.

Thanks if you can answer me on the shank stiffness.

Best regards

Hi,

We have no wish to change the shanks stiffness. In our opinion the shanks work quite well. Realize that in any set of wooden shanks there is a wide range in stiffness because of the all natural variation in the strength of the pieces of wood themselves. There will be a few, statistically about two, that will be close to as stiff as the WNG shanks. The main difference is that the WNG shanks, in comparison to wood shanks, are very uniform. This helps the pianist perhaps even more than the technician.

Fundamentally, the stiffer shanks get you more kinetic energy when the hammer hits the string because the hammer is moving faster. No more, no less. Nothing mystical here.

We do think that a somewhat softer hammer is a good idea as opposed to a certain European competitor's hydraulic hot pressed rocks. Tone quality is related to the length of time the hammer is in contact with the string and in this situation a softer hammer can be helpful.

On our complete top action assemblies, we dropped the sandpaper because it was so good that the main complaint was that one had to loosen screws to move the flange. We, and most of our customers, have had no problem spacing hammers when using our current system. If anything, it is easier because after spacing and "burning" the shanks don't change thus the spacing doesn't change.

The reason for the light jack is to ensure rapid movement. Less mass, quicker movement. Or perhaps I should say, "Less Mass, More Movement" All together now, "Less Mass, More Movement". For those not from the United States, this is a rather silly take off on a famous beer comercial.

If you will notice the jack stop is double felted with the large piece of felt on the repetition base rather than the jack button. In addition to being quieter it helps the jack move more rapidly. You might notice that the system also does not create welts in the stop felt making future regulation problematic.

You should try the backchecks before you write them off. In our experience if you install them correctly (our backcheck system is good way to do this) you will get better checking than you have ever had before.

Good luck with your project. If you do everything well you will have a very nice piano indeed.

Hi Bruce,

Question....what are the pos and/or negs of replacing my tokiwa wood shanks with your WNG shanks, keeping the tokiwa wood whippens? The whippens are only about 5 years old, that, plus the cost factor is a concern. What differences would I hear as far as tone and volume? I already have your WNG back action, which works beautifully btw.

My piano is a 1927 M&H RBB, with 2 player systems, an Ampico, and an LX system. From what I have read in this post, both player systems would benefit from a more uniform stiffness, especially the LX, since every note can be adjusted to 1,023 levels of intensity. Also, the player systems love uniformity, when the action is regulated, touchweight, and balanced etc. Thanks

We know of no negatives to our composite shanks.

The positive, in our view, is that that piano plays better. The blow from note to note is much more uniform with composite shanks than would be possible with wooden shanks. We think both tone quality and sustain is superior with our composite shanks.

From a maintenence standpoint, composite shanks are much more stable than wood. Burning, hammer spacing and flange screw tightness stays put rather than needing continual adjustment. Hard bushings stay put much better than cloth bushings doing away with a great deal of repinning that would naturally occur with cloth bushings.

Because the knuckle is made with synthetic buckskin it will wear better than a traditional knuckle. Also, for those of you who have struggled with squeaking knuckles, that is a feature of natural buckskin entirely missing in synthetic. If you feel the synthetic buckskin is has a slipperness to it where the natural buckskin tends to grab under pressure.

As far as cost, WNG is competitive. If you save it won't be much. It will, however, be worth it.

Hello thank you for answering me. I will see how it turns, my guess is that the extra power gained with your shanks is adapted to the tone and voicing methods used on the US pianos.

We are used to hammers with a dense compressed part under the crown for power, and the shank when in wood is adding a tone we are all used to hear without noticing it.

Your actions hav been tested by very good pianist, who find the control on power amazing, but at the same time did not know what to do with that power which is very immediate, and does not modulate as with the "undelying" power present in the standard wooden shank actions. Aint just a mechanical point, in my opinion.
I dont know for sure if the shank resonance is a proof of the elasticity of the part, the hammer mass may play a role, I just asked if it was possible to even the tone of the shank as it seem to be possible for a few notes, not by much (1/2 tone).

I play well enough myself to be able to ascertain the touch and
tone of a grand piano, I am not at all professional pianist, but I know about dynamics and tone envelope

I The interesting experience will be to compare side by side the 2 shanks , then the difference in dynamics and in tone can be noticed. I suppose you did such test intensively yourself, why not putting on line some videos or recordings ?

I will write more in detail after the action will be finished.

For the bachecks, they are new but they turn easily on their wire.

I understand the logical about having less mass on the backcheck side of the key, but the part itself may be strong, tall and massive enough in my opinion.

I like the light and very fast jack, certainly if the pinning question is addressed the action will be very fast and even.

I just wonder if that apply well with the tone that, culturally, I am used to (and which is slowly disappearing anyway) We came from a strong impact with a somehow noticeable inertia, to faster actions with a lighter tone (the mass of keys and the mass of parts is changing the tone in a way I was not really aware, in fact the lead begun to be added to the keys so to obtain a stronger tone initially)

I admit that the mass will be preferentially located on the hammer, but as the checking moment is often synchrone with the moment the note "speaks" the impact of key, the way the backcheck stops the hammer, have an influence not only on touch but also on the tone percussiveness.

Thank you for taking time to answer me .

Best regards

Greetings,
I haven't found anyone that thinks the tone is altered by the carbon fiber shanks, nor can I tell that something is "missing". We have only had a side by side comparison with another Renner equipped Steinway with Renner hammers vs. the composite action with Steinway hammers. The variability in wooden hammershanks is, I think, responsible for far greater tonal change than the change from wood to carbon fiber. The variability due to pinning inconsistencies I would also consider to be of greater effect on tone than the material in the shank. If so, then the tonal implications of the CF are negligible. The stability of the pinning and flanges make a far stronger case for throwing the wood away than anything else.
Regards,

Thanks for that feedback.

In a wooden shanks action, the shanks are more or less 'voiced', ( a too short tone can be made better by scraping the shank) the mellow ones are avoided, the harder ones are in the basses, and the evening of the resonance of tone even visibly a part of the tone which is heard (the raise in evenness is well noticeable between a non scraped shank set and a scraped one)

The tone of the WnG shanks is even (from note to note) , but a few ones could be adjusted. we where not yet there, the piano is now regulated so better tests can be done and an eventual tone difference checked..

For information, what are the differences between voicing the shank and voicing the felt? Is it not possible to achieve similar results by voicing the felt instead of the shank?

The only time I've ever noticed the voicing of hammer shanks has been when it has been uneven. A well scraped shank set will have a shank tone that doesn't stand out, is lost within the tone of the instrument.

You use very muddled terms to describe this kind of thing, Isaac, so it's difficult to understand quite what you mean. My perception is that the shanks contribute two elements to the sound - one is the broadband, unpitched noise of the impact that is just a part of the sound of many other components of the action together at fractionally different times (ie keybed noise etc). The other is the pitched, resonant element to the wood's sound.

Is it the pitched element that you are talking about when you talk about scraping the shanks?

If it is, then ideally you would want the tone frequency of each shank to correspond to the note being played. Is this something you have seen done, or done yourself?

Most of what has been said about sorting and scraping shanks seems to be about dividing them into categories - keep/reject, and then bass/treble.

It seems to me that any tuning of the resonant tone of the shanks is done not to bring out a particular tone, but to mask it as much as possible, and to create as even a contribution as is possible from the wooden components of the action.

I'm not so sure that this tone contribution is desirable, as it seems to me that it will inevitably be uneven, even with careful scraping. Much more uneven than, for example, a duplex scale. And those can be very uneven, even on top class instruments!

Phil, I am sorry for my poor terminology.

the pitch of shanks relate to their level of flexibility for the most part. a stiffer shank will be higher pitched. what we do when scraping is just to avoid a nhigher note to tone lower than its neighbor.

This is to be done on selected shanks where we can have 3 classes of shanks used in bass mediums and treble, plus a thinner selection for the high treble.

often a dull note can be made more sparkly by scraping the shank.

For the evening of tone I just noticed how it was heard with a before and after listening. could not analyse that really farther. the last 2 sections where concerned, but check on any high grade grand by knocking on the tails or having the shank knocking on a scraper blade , and you will notice it have been done.

possibly the impact noise is adressed then, as it relates to the hammer to string contact time, to me.

Best regards

It would not be a good idea to try to "voice" the WNG shanks by scraping them. The structure of a carbon tube does not allow for this. All you would do is damage the shank.

To the question concerning upright actions. We have a working prototype of an upright action. Currently, much as we did on the grand actions, we are working through making them work in the Mason & Hamlin Model 50.

While the basic structure of the action is working well in our tests, there are a number of small changes we have identified that we need to implement. Things such as changes in spring rates and the like. In other words, we are in the later stages of product development.

Also, we can't sell these actions until we have worked out the processes required so we can teach customers how to install the WNG upright action in a piano.

We are anticipating that something like mid year 2013 we should be in the market with our WNG composite upright actions.

I do have the WNG shanks installed for a year already on my instrument and it is a joy to play, very smooth action, very reliable, predictable and touch remains the same regardless of weather changes. I used to run the hair dryer over the shanks' flanges during the wet season when I was using wooden shanks, no more such activity.

I love to try WNG's wippen sometime in the future on my piano