Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Weighting my piano keys (used to be "knowing more about my piano")

I wanted to get the opinion of some of you guys here on the tech forum regarding my piano and what work I should be getting for it.

I'm pretty terrible at remembering the model but what I have is a 5'2" (I believe) Baldwin grand, an R model with number 353671, finished in ebony satin. We bought it in 2000, I think. Since then it's been through some good times and bad times. When we bought it I really liked the brightness of it (I was in high school then, going through a bright piano phase) but now, not so much. It's sat for roughly four years without being tuned while I was away at college, and has been through two moves, one from New Jersey to Atlanta.

When I got it down here to Atlanta I let it sit for a few months before I got the tech to come over and take a look. During the tuning I was told it needed regulation and the tech wanted to take my action home with him to work on it! Well, I said no, as I'm not made of money, and I had a second tech come over and regulate my piano in-home. While he was here he did some voicing to take away some of the brightness as well.

While most of the piano sounds lovely (when I heard it I said, "Wow, my piano sounds like a piano now!") there are still some keys that remain bright with a very sharp, metallic feel. I was curious as to what would cause that sound, even after a voicing. The sound of this piano was originally bright with a ping to it, which I now consider unfortunate, since I prefer a mellower sound. Are there any other ways besides revoicing that I could tone down the brightness?

Lastly, the keyweight is around 40-44 grams, which my old tuner back in Jersey told me was heavy enough. I still maintain that this is light, and I want a heavier touch. What should I be looking at in terms of key weight, and should I want the keys to be weighted, what kind of process would I be looking at?

An R is 5'-8". Voicing is a process that takes a while. If some notes are still to bright, it needs to be touched up. I suggest that you live with the key weight the way it is.

Where do I look for my model letter then? Right above the numbers on my piano there is stamped a very large R. And it definitely is not 5'8".

Before making decisions about changing touchweight get the action evaluated accurately. Existing touchweight should be even across the keyboard and you should look at upweight as well as downweight - solve any friction and regulation problems that may exist first.
One alternative - if you do want to increase touchweight, for every gram that you add at the hammer the touchweight will increase by about 5 grams up and downweights.
(This would be preferable to weighting keys to increase touchweight)
This may also help improve the tone - especially in the lower third of the piano. This is also very easy to experiment with.
A more expensive alternative would be a new set of high quality hammers that are a gram or so heavier.
In either case I consider a light fast action to be about 50 grams down and 30+ grams up - personal taste will vary.

If it says "R" it's a 5'8". Length is measured with the top closed from the furthest part of the curve to front lip of the keybed.

Voicing can affect perceptions of touch. Also the acoustic value of the room. Louder, brighter rooms make a bright piano "feel" light. Your tech did correctly to "err on the side of caution" by not voicing too deeply. You may find that after playing the piano for a few months those grievences will not be so problematic.

Well, I'll be. It really is 5'8". It doesn't look all that big... okay, my ignorance aside, what are R models usually like? What are your experiences with them?

It's been roughly 8 months since the piano's been voiced. It's in need of another tuning, definitely. I'll talk to my tech about it.

Thanks for the bit on the upweight - I'm really interested in how the piano works and that'll be one more thing I'll discuss with my tech.

I've wanted a heavier touch since I was 17. I know it's a pain but it's for my own health as a pianist - I want to practice and give lessons on a heavier piano so that my students and myself will be prepared for varied actions in different recital halls.

Any work related to touchweight should be carried out by your piano technician. There are 1 g clips that can be attached to the hammer shanks, increasing the downweight by about 5 g. This is inexpensive and quickly reversible, if needed. Ask your piano tech about that option.

I will! I'll be calling him tomorrow after I come back from teaching. Unfortunately I teach on a POS Kawai upright that makes me grind my teeth every time I touch it. I want to come home to something that helps me calm down. Revoicing is definitely on my list of things to do, again.

So, I've been poking around on the piano forums, and now I want to know even more about my piano. If I had the budget and space I'd go ahead and buy a second one so I could have piano parties... I digress. What do tuners generally think about the Baldwin R models?

8 months is a bit long to let the piano go without tuning... is it humid in Atlanta? How is the humidity in the room where the piano is located? After not tuning the piano for so many years... did you need a pitch raise? If so, did the tuner raise the pitch all at once or over a few tunings? I tune my piano 4 times a year and I have a dampp-chaser climate control system on the piano to regulate the humidity around the soundboard.

Believe me if I had the disposable income to be getting my piano tuned regularly every 3 months, I'd be doing it. I'm 23 and a piano teacher. Disposable income is hard to come by.

I don't recall whether or not I needed a pitch raise, but the tuning was done once. The climate down here in Atlanta has been pretty dry, since there has been a drought over the last couple of years.

Okay! I just had my piano re-tuned (pitch dropped 6 cents, boo) and had a bit more voicing done. I talked to my technician about the weight and I mentioned the clips. He took a look at my action and noted where the capstan was, and said he could change the weight by shifting the action forward on the shin (? I think that might be it).

What do you guys think about that? He said he didn't like the clips because the time invested would still be the same, and occasionally they rattle. He did say the action was very nice and responsive, and that once he shifts the action forward he'd have to do another regulation.

Sounds like a bit of a contradiction to me. If I understand it correctly, the tech proposes to shift the whole action. This changes the strike line and the action geometry and will involve a lot of regulating to get it to work, IF it will work in the end.

The clips are super fast to install, and can be used as a test to see if heavier hammers would solve the problem. I would put them on two octaves and additional sample notes across the board. The beauty is that this measure is very quickly reversible, without having to touch the regulation.

I'll grant that different techs have different approaches and varying angles of attack to a particular problem. As well, we can't see what the tech sees who is examining your piano. But I can only warn about "calling in earth movers when a wheelbarrow might do it".

Wrong weight on the keys could be the result of three different things and each has their own solution. Your tech s proposing you change the action ratio. I say find out what the ratio is now. If it's a 1 to 4.8 I say it's that. Move the capstans. You can carry a lot of weight with that ratio and will have lots of dip. If it's 1 to 5.5, don't change it, it's one of the other two. The other two is the hammers are too light for the leading in the keys. Either add weight to the hammer or take some lead out of the keys. If you have lots of lead, take some out. Not so much, hang a clip on the hammers.

How would I find out what this ratio is?

I want to do what will be best for my piano in the long run, but I need to weigh (ha!) that against the cost. My piano is too light, bottom line, and it needs to be heavier. I can deal with up to 60 grams worth of weight. A clip doesn't seem like it'd do enough.

Are you dealing with Piano Technicians Guild member technicians with RPT credentials? Sounds like some gonzo speculation and fixes proposed. Scary.

Touch weight is measured at the end of the natural keys with the sustain pedal held down. The key should just break tension and drop to let off with 52 - 55 grams. Hard to imagine a Baldwin at 40 grams. Harder still to imagine your Jersey tech saying that was heavy enough.
Hard to imagine a 7 year old Baldwin R that is so friction free as to present such low weights.

Don't let anyone start re-inventing your action by changing geometry or adding weights or moving weights. The Baldwin R scale and action designs are generations old and reliable.

Touch is about 50% actual measurable weight and about 50% impression from the voice of the instrument. If an instrument has a brighter more percussive tone the impression will be that it is lighter and easier to play. If it has a rounder woodier mellower tone the impression is likely that it is harder to play. The gram weight at the keys may be the same.

I believe you need some more experienced and competitant advice before you mess with the action.

Hello Techs,

I was hoping you all could give me some general advice on my feeling about the weight of the action on my S&S 1905 A3, which I bought last year (with the helpful information/advice of many of the techs here).

I had the action replaced, which my tech spent over 60 hours fiddling with, because I wasn't happy with it at first: a LOT of needling the hammers. Then, also I found it to feel incredibly light, even though he swore (and showed me) that the action was at 55 grams. He got the action parts from Hamburg Steinway (and the hammers from Abel), which he claims is part of the reason it feels light. So after doing everything else that he could think of (I think he said changing the drop, among other things), he drilled weights onto the keys, with the result that now it weighs in at about 65-70 grams, if I remember correctly.

So this is my question. It now feels approximately heavy enough for my taste, but it still doesn't have the kind of feel that I wanted, and I don't know how to explain it. When I hit the keys, it feels like biting an apple: like resistance at the first bite, and less resistance after that. What I want is for it to feel like pressing into something thick, like a hot knife into butter. Do I need more friction, like twisting the pins in the bushings? I know that tone really affects perception of touch, so I'm not sure of what I'm asking for anymore.

Also, he said, if I wasn't happy with the weights he attached, the next step would be to get heavier hammers, to which my (inward) reaction was, why didn't we go with that in the first place, if I said before we started that I wanted as heavy an action as reasonably possible? Will heavier hammers improve the sound quality? She sounds lovely, actually, and sustains sufficiently; but she still doesn't have quite the complexity and richness of sound that I want in the killer octave (I think that's what it's called)--where I play melodies usually. The bass is kick-*** though, she really powers through.

He says the issue with the sound is the strings, which, it's true, are over 40 years old; as soon as I can afford to do without her for a few weeks, I will have her restrung and the soundboard refinished. But would heavier hammers produce a fatter, more complex, more focused sound?

Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

I really appreciate your help.
xoxoxoxo

It is always difficult to make a long distance diagnosis, but it sounds like an inertia problem. The static weights may have been OK at 55 g, but in play, inertia comes into play which changes the whole feel of the action.

When action components get replaced, even minute dimensional differences can have an effect on action geometry, leverages and touch.

Before changing key weights I might have experimented with adding weight to the hammers in a reversible way, to see how that would feel.

Which brings us to your other question. Yes, hammer mass has a lot to do with tone. So, from a far distance and without any more information than what you can give us, it sounds like heavier hammers in the first place, along with the original key leading, MAY have been a workable solution.

Replacing the strings will improve the tone as well, but it is hard to say if that alone will now give you the results you are trying to achieve.

That is one of the pitfalls of buying an unrestored piano - it can be a bit of a pig in a poke. You don't really know exactly what you are getting at the time of your purchase.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

No, that's quite helpful, thank you.

So but why is inertia different from the amount of weight it takes to depress the key? I actually read a more detailed post about inertia, but it referred to too many things that I didn't know the meaning of.

And how would I then increase inertia?

Inertia is the amount of mass in the action. Extra mass can be used to lower the touch-weight, but it will add inertia.

It is fairly complex. Inertia is not only related to the amount of mass in the system, but more importantly, to the velocity or the acceleration of that mass.

The thing about inertia is that it grows exponentially with velocity. That is why in playing the key very slowly, it is hardly noticable. What you feel is weight and friction. At high velocity (F,FF, FFF) you mainly feel inertia; weight and friction become relatively small in comparison. That explains the difference between static and dynamic touch sensation.

Adding weight to any part of the system (key, wippen, hammer) will increase inertia.

In your case, it would be interesting to take a few sample notes, change the key leading to bring the down weight down again, then add some mass, 1 -2 g to the hammer. This will raise the downweight again perhaps close to what it was, but it will raise the inertia of the hammer. As well, more hammer mass will have a tonal efect - maybe exacly what your piano needs. Different soundboard and scaling designs need different weights of hammers.