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My LightHammer Tone Regulation protocol use the feel of the key moving the hammer to determine how much to lighten them. I start with almost no front leads in the keys and make my first judgments comparing the highest note on the overstrung portion to the first note above that.

You need to feel with a key speed that is within the range that would allow playing fast and light. In other words not too slow. In order to produce a soft sound, a piano that requires you to move the key so slowly that you can't play fast and soft is defective. You judge the momentum in the hammer by sensing how quickly you can change it. You also can use the return key speed to help judge this. You also must have a smooth and rapid escapement. You don't want to feel a bump resistance at escapement.

Then when you get to the portion of the compass where the frequency hit triple digits, 1,000HZ on up to the top; you must reduce the mass of the hammers nearly as much as possible to open up the treble tone. Don't start lacquering until you get the hammer mass correct.

Then you can measure the downweight and reduce it some and even it up by installing key leads. With low inertia actions 65 grams DW does not feel that heavy. (This is what blows technicians minds when they experience how easy an action can feel to play that has static touch weights above 60 grams.)

Lighter hammers also stay in voice and endure significant use far better than heavy ones.

Ok, thanks for explaining I wouldn’t have thought it’d make any difference but I like to hear others’ thoughts and consider them. I’m still going to remove some lead though, see how that affects touch.

It’s definitely not a hammer issue, and isn’t something affected by typical top action regulation (drop, let off, alignment, etc.).



Thanks for all of the details! Definitely interesting and useful.

When you hear too much "thud" hammer noise, you also know the hammers are too heavy. This is especially true from 1K HZ up in the compass. A you bring hammer weight down the sustain, brilliance and dynamic range rises.

What weight hammers would Steinway likely have intended for this 1940’s D? I could file down one of the ‘originals’ a lot and see how it affects the tone. Although it’s worth saying the WNG replacements are somewhat heavier and in terms of the issue I’m hearing they are identical.

1940's NY Steinway hammers would have had walnut selected by weight for mouldings and they would have been made rather narrow. How they were tone regulated would have varied with who did the work. Each tone regulator can have their own "style".

Do you have a gram scale that can weigh to the nearest tenth of a gram? There are very inexpensive electronic ones now available. One that can weigh up to 200 grams should do.

Yes my wife has a nice kitchen scale I could probably use. I don’t have the original hammers though (well, I don’t think they’re originals, at least). What are you wanting me to weigh?

Ed,

I think this might get a little too complicated...what do you think?


Pwg

This is not true. I have been experimenting with this lately. Here's what i discovered. The thud noise is caused by the felt being too soft in the area above the tip of the moulding. I always hated that noise and so i have been playing with simple ways to get rid of it. What worked was applying lacquer to the tip of the moulding area with a few drops of lacquer/acetone until a circle is formed and you stop before the circle expands into the top part of the hammer( usually the circle is the size of a dime. Then let it dry and listen. It may take 1-3 applications but you'll hear the thud go away.
-chris

That’s interesting, Chris. Do you feel like that’s always the reason? Could you get a ‘thud’ because of soundboard issues?

I was talking about the hammer thud noise, not soundboard. One thing for sure is there are many types of sounds/noises, and to be able to diagnose each of those is an essential skill for a piano technician to have.

Thanks Chris. I can certainly appreciate your thoughts. I am quite happy to ask questions and I feel no need to praise myself.

However, a rather perfect example of my perspective ... some years ago a university nearby with a CD Steinway had the action rebuilt by a reputable RPT. He did great work, except for voicing. The faculty expressed their severe disappointment to the technician but he didn’t see a problem. They (rightly) felt the piano was unusable. Eventually they asked me to come in to give advice and I wrote up a report on what I thought should be done. The technician came back and did ‘something’ and it was slightly better. I saw the piano again 2 years later and saw what he did (no one had worked on it since), and it was totally wrong for the type of hammer. I ended up spending many hours correcting the voicing work he thought needed nothing further.

I’m not a technician by profession but I did train with a longtime RPT. And since I only focus on things I’m interested in there are certainly some gaps in my knowledge. For instance, until recently I’ve had no reason to work with key weighting/balancing, so now it’s becoming something I’m interested in. Or the issue of the ‘thud’, you being very knowledgeable about soundboards I was curious what your perspective is on if that can affect the ‘thud’ sound (for instance will a dead or problematic soundboard not project string tone and sound like a thud?).

So I ask questions interested to hear everyone’s perspective, knowing that you will often disagree with each other and other fine technicians, and that some of you will give solutions that are wrong. I like to hear everyone’s thoughts and sometimes I learn things.

Actually, Ed was correct, and so are you. The thud noise is caused by the hammer taking too long to bounce away from the strings. Especially at the treble end of the piano, the result of a too slow bounce is the damping of the strings' vibrations. If that happens, what you're left with is a thud. There are 2 things one can do it shorten the bounce time--lighten the hammer or make it harder. Of course, one can do both.

To go back to the original question. Isn't this the same instrument you installed WNG composite parts on (which had hammers much longer than the ones that were installed). I remember your photo you posted-- about 1/8 to 1/4" longer than those that were in the action... This is more than likely your culprit for the disappointment in tone.
Not only the parts (in my opinion), but more so the installation and geometry of those parts. I didn't see how you would get a proper striking point on this piano with that photo you showed, and I am fairly certain this is what the problem is. If your striking point is off only slightly, your tone will disappoint (let alone how far off that photo was!).


Edit: "which had hammers much longer" = hammer shanks much longer

What I think you'll find you need to do, is perform striking point tests- find your proper location and adjust those hammers.

Thanks Rick for getting the thread back on track Yes this is for the same piano as the other thread you mentioned.

However, I really don’t think we can use the previous installation as any kind of reference. For one, from hammer #68 up to #88 (though I forget the exact starting point) the shanks are the same length as the WNG parts. The previous hammers/shanks rather inexplicably became shorter at some point in the scale at or around #68. In the range where the WNG shanks are longer, the tonal issue I’m describing is exactly the same (and I have moved the action in and out some to see if it would get any better).

Not to mention the weighting issue. I went though and removed 63 extra weights from 15 keys today... It’ll take me hours to get the rest out and then start adjusting for optimum touchweight.

And then there was the ridiculous regulation job when I first encountered the piano.

I feel like whoever worked on this piano was a nut, or at least was trying to accommodate insane desires by a nutty pianist.

LOL
Nutsy jobs abound out there on pianos

I really do think the issue is coming from your striking line, though. Whether the set that was on there was right or not. The tone issue (or rather lack thereof) is more than likely coming from this factor. I really don't see how changing key-weight is going to do anything for you in this particular regard...
Regulation issues don't really affect such a "dead" tone of which you are speaking- except that is for regulation of hammer voicing, and as pointed out, the factors concerning the hammer strike (both proper rebound away from strings, AND more commonly the striking line of the hammers). I doubt you are experiencing a problem with the hammers killing the tone at the point of strike, so, I really do think that you are experiencing a striking point issue here.
I confess, I didn't follow the entire thread from before--- did you run any striking point tests? To see if tone improved? Are you sure the bore angle was set proper?
By the way, I can't remember- did you say the tone was dead like this BEFORE you replaced the hammers?

Thanks Rick. I’ll give it a shot when I’m in next week. And yes, the tonal issue has been there since I first heard the piano. I voiced the previous hammers which made the piano sound better, but the ‘dead’ sound remained. The new WNG hammers sound a little better but again there is somewhat of a dead sound.

The touchweight issue became muddled into the tone issue because I misunderstood what Ed was saying. However, I had been wanting to increase the touchweight anyway. But when I saw how much lead was in the keys it became a bigger issue which I’m now regretting a bit (since it will take more time than I should reasonably put into the piano).

Agreed that you definitely have your work cut out for you there with the key-weight issue and the regulation...
Have you checked that the bridges are not loose? If the deadness of tone was there before, could it be that the bridge glue joints have let loose?

Did you check the strike line using the multipliers I provided earlier? These ratios were derived from hundreds of pianos and testing by ear. I find them much more reliable than setting them all by ear every time because new hammers are too soft in the treble to give you any nuanced information about exact strike point. At least they should be too soft up there when new or they will be too hard everywhere else.

I will confidently admit I have done zero work with bridges beyond using CA glue on pins for false beats. Are there signs to look for regarding a loose bridge (I mean, if it’s not blatantly obvious)?

Thanks for the reminder Ed. I’ll be there next week and I’ll do more investigating.