Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum You can't make an action lighter

... by adding 112 lead weights to the keys. That was 2.8 pounds (1.27 kg) worth of worthless lead.

I know that no one on this list would ever do such a thing but I just took that many lead weights out of the keys belonging to a Chas. Walter 175 grand. The piano was purchased new a few years back. During the negotiations the buyer mentioned that he thought the action felt a little heavy.

When the piano was delivered he thought it still felt a little heavy but it wasn't bad enough to really complain about. It also sounded a little bright.

I was called to look at the piano a couple of months ago. I was reasonably sure the original hammers had been chemically hardened at some point in its history. (This happened fairly often with these pianos both at the factory and at various dealerships in a misguided attempt to make them sound like Yamahas out on the showroom floor.) The piano is now located in a relatively "hard" room so various attempts have been made to voice the hammers down.

The poor things looked like pin cushions. We decided to replace them with a fresh set of Ronsen/Weikert hammers. Along with processing the hammers in the usual manner -- taking off as much excess felt and wood as seemed prudent -- and gluing them in place I evened out the friction in the action centers. Finally I set the action back in place to figure out what to do with the keys.

I don't know why I hadn't looked at the keys until I got to this point but I hadn't. Given the uneven friction I found in the action centers -- and knowing that Walter "individually weighs-off" their actions for downweight -- I expected to remove some leads and re-arrange others.

But I was not prepared to find that some 112 additional lead weights had been randomly added to random keys with no discernable pattern. A couple of keys had five added leads, some had none. Others had leads on the back side of the balance rail.

After I removed all of them along with a few of the originals the action finally feels like it should have felt all along.

As I put the poor thing back together I couldn't help but think of the value of PTG seminars and conventions, the Journal and other forms of education that have been available over the years. I can think of some folks who would do well to pay attention.

ddf

It is "key" to our mission-DO NOT BE MIS-LEAD!

Sounds like you "enlightened" a piano Del.

Exposure to lead has been shown to lower IQ.

It is a "touch of insanity" to pollute a piano action with lead.

OK, I'm done with the "pun"ishment this evening. Good night all!

I'm going to try to remember this one....

ddf

the words "adding lead to lighten" is yet sounding strange.

WHat I hate is that the keys are now full of holes that need to be closed in a way the key have its stiffness back.
I have seen the use of some "putty"

Dont know how efficient it is for the job, Gluing plugs is what I do, that mean having plug cutters or a good recollection of them.
You can find such plugs sold for wooden floors, to repair the knots in planks. thicknesses and sizes are limited however.

May be that lead was used for tonal reasons, to provide more energy when the key impacts the keybed ...?

Del:

Could you give us your thoughts on weighting individual keys to get a individual target downweight? You see my own CW console, bought used, had leads "all over the map" too. It no longer does...

In this case some of the added leads had been over-swaged and has caused a number of horizontal cracks down the centers of the keys. There was also a lot of chipping around the edges of the holes, some of them quite large. In the end I decided this time to simply fill them with epoxy.

I taped off one side -- the cleanest side -- and filled from the roughest side so all of the chipped areas were filled as well. I used WEST slow-set epoxy loaded with phenolic micro-balloons giving it a density approximately equal to that of the wood. Caught at the right time it is easy to trim off the excess with a very sharp chisel and, after a full cure, sand them nice and smooth.

This method doesn't look as nice as well-fitted wood plugs but it's stronger, fills all the miscellaneous cracks and chip-outs and takes a less time. (Unless you can find a reliable source for properly cut spruce or pine plugs. You can always make them but it's a bit time-consuming.)


ddf

The keys in vertical actions are balanced some differently than are those in grands.

In a vertical action my preference is to back lead the keys just enough so that they rest against the backrail with the action removed.

This has less to do with touch than with action reliability. You don't want the back of the key slowing the wippen as it drops down to reset the jack.

If this leaves the action still feeling a little light then my preference is to add small weights to the back of the wippen if possible. That is, if there is room for them. Another place to look at is the hammerbutt catcher.

In neither case are these weights very large. I've used 1/4" (approx. 6 mm) lead wire for the wippens and 1/8" or 3/16" (approx. 3 mm or 5 mm) lead wire in the catchers.

Don't go overboard with any of this -- use trial pieces and judgment.

ddf

Thanks for the reply.

What I was asking about, OK what I am challenging, is the whole idea of individually weighting keys to adjust downweight without regarding friction, not to mention inertia. It seems a better selling point than a good construction point. Like what are people thinking when one key has no leads and the next has two?

Ah, that. I’ve written about that practice many times on these lists. This is a practice that started out many years back as an attempt by piano makers to make the “touchweight” of their actions uniform. It took extra time so they figured out how to market the concept and now it is practiced by many pianomakers who have no understanding of how piano actions work. One company in particular has used this in an attempt to mask all kinds of action assembly and installation problems. And yet, it is promoted as a “feature.”

Properly, key leading should be done to an engineered standard based on the weight of the various action parts and the overall action ratio. If this results in an uneven key-to-key touch then the problem is with friction, not weight, and should be treated accordingly.

ddf

I have done several uprights where I counterweight the catcher with solder wire. This improves the center of gravity of the upright hammer assembly. It is very important to reduce the mass of the hammer by tapering it at the same time. I usually find it needed from the first hammer above the bass break becoming progressively more important as you get to 88. Other wise you are raising the inertia of the assembly too much for good tone.

This usually also reduces the need for any strength on the hammer return spring. This helps soft playing and also adds to repetition speed.

But the biggest repetition help is to reduce the weight of the front half of the keys by drilling holes. Especially the naturals because they have so much more wood on that end than the sharps. Then you can add a small back lead to even the static touch weight a little by placing it properly on the key

To Ed Mc: This sounds interesting to me. Can you add a photo?

I will try to post a photo after I give taking a good one a try. I am not so good with cameras. I am doing a Baldwin Hamilton right now with the modified catcher. It is not getting the tapered carbon fiber shank that I have used on a couple of uprights before. Customer is too cost conscious. I will try to remember to phot one of my spare shanks too.

The aspect does not matter much in that case, more the possibly to be able to bore and insert a lead if necessary.
Plugs are sold for tile floors. Not much diameter choices in that case. Yes epoxy must be good to the keys, I thought I a ready to use puttyI, some of them may be exactly that, a powder with epoxy rosin.

Thanks for the tip.

The whole topic of what touch "weight" is--is so often burdened by the poor definition of what "heavy" and what "light" is.

Most serious tone regulators now know that the near static measurement of first key movement tells you next to nothing about how a pianist will perceive the resistance of a particular action.

The simplest definition I can make of a desirable touch is that when playing softly your fingers should feel a uniform, firm, and smooth-thru-out-the-keystroke, resistance at the key. The bump at escapement should be even across the compass and just slightly felt.

As you increase the dynamic expression the feeling of key resistance should start to decrease. So that when you are pounding out FFF chords you can still do it without increasing the force used from the start of key movement. That way you can play forcefully and relaxed. If you have to significantly increase force on the key during keystroke to get the dynamics you want-you will be making your muscles tense and limiting how rapidly you can repeat the playing motion.

Most pianos have and are being made in a way that feels the opposite of this. Yes, pianists are amazingly adaptable, and can still perform very well on a much less than ideal action. But this state of affairs does not have to exist.

Plus when an action is made with lighter, softer hammers than the standard of today and has higher than average leverage, and very little in the way of key weights-it is way more durable and stable. So it is also a better value.

The overall design of pianos is very "robust". By that I mean that skilled technicians can get many different configurations to work fairly well for most pianists-but-the price paid is highest for heavy hard hammers, reduced leverage, and keys packed with weights. And some of the methods employed are very temporary and wear out the action.

According to the owner of the piano that started this thread a previous technician had measured the "downweight" and determined that it was well with "specs." I have no idea what it was -- I didn't bother measuring it once I spotted all that excess lead and determined that there was a fair amount of friction in the action. It was all going to go anyway.

Now, after loosing 2.8 pounds (1.27 kg) of lead; after having a bunch of action centers repined and getting a new set of moderately lighter hammers (without the chemical hardening of the originals) the owner has just informed me that the action feels ever so much lighter and smoother; he can now play pianissimo passages smoothly -- probably for the first time since he has owned the piano.

ddf

Did the owner of the Walter purchase it new or was it leaded after.
I assume after since the Walter actions I see utilize little lead.

I agree to your description of a type of touch Ed, but I o not dismiss the importance of the "damping" quality of a leaded key.
The impact of the key happens more or less synchro , a little early to a little late, and that is modifying the way the shank and hammer are transmitting energy.
The thump makes the whole piano sound body in motion, then the hammers goes to the string like if the sustain peal have been engaged a little.
I suspect that is where comes the "more sonorous" effect perceive with lead.

if coming late after the tone begin it also energize it by reinforcing lower frequencies, I suppose.

It is anyway surprising as an old panel can sound more powerful when a too large lea quantity have been used. it lower the spectra allowing for more low frequencies, while the problem of old panels is they mostly send higher frequencies.

Now is that effect desirable ? it goes along with more impact noise certainly...

I have never found any musical benefit to making a grand action that "requires" the front half of most of the keys to be essentially made from lead. When actions like this are new-they can play reasonably well-but as soon as the hammers wear the dynamics become very difficult to control. This is at the extremes of the inertia characteristic range of possible action configuration that are still playable.

The industry should stop polluting piano actions with lead!! Just make the hammers and leverage in the proper ratio, and most key counterweighting can be eliminated.

Certainly, Ed, there must be also a bit of psychological effect, as when driving a big car with large wheels, the pleasure of being allow to manipulate something you feel the mass make you feel stronger !

The mass could be adapted at the mass of the players arm, too, I suppose.

But again I do not advocate for heavy hammers , just to a certain ratio between hammer mass an key mass, as little the key inertia is supposed to interfere in the touch.

Sort of devil advocate there, I never find that 5-6
leads in first basses of certain Steinways did add anything, nor the too numerous leads sometime seen in tenor (I noticed that last in the rare NY S&S from the 80-90 I have seen .
There it seem to damp the tone.