hello Dean, Alan, Jon and all,
i found the issue: i installed new key pins some 6 months ago, eyeballing their straightness when doing so. Then i had to put everything aside to focus on a customer's rebuild and when i resumed working on my own piano, i just assumed that the key pins were straight..... they were not!
i had not straightened the pins with the square edge i typically use. I just did one section this morning and the keys level perfectly with the leveling stick and with a smooth transition from key to key.
Thank you,
Peter
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Petrus Janssen
Peachtree City GA
678-416-8055
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-21-2020 10:49
From: Dean Reyburn
Subject: leveling keys
Hi Peter,I think it's up to the individual tech and piano, but I usually put a crown in a keyboard. I use the same WNG level. I don't have any problem getting the keys to be perfectly level to each other whether I use the flat or curved side of the WNG leveling stick.
A simple trick to do final leveling is to sight down the keys with your eye just above the key level. You'll see the low and high keys immediately. Learned that at the Yamaha Little Red School house, it can be maddening trying to get it perfect.
If you've leveled keys on a lot of older grands you'll notice right away that the middle couple octaves always end up lower than the end keys, just from playing compression - in other words a negative crown. The positive crown helps compensate for that for future playing.
Another tool for leveling you can make yourself is to use two 24" angle aluminum straight edges. I made a pair of these from 1/16" thick by 1" by 1" angle aluminum you can get from the hardware store. The advantage for packing in a vehicle is that the tool is half as long. You have to set samples at notes 1, 44, 45 and 88, but you can customize the crown to anything you like. The other advantage to this setup is it's great for teaching or otherwise doing the job with two people.
But I do love that WNG straight edge, we use it in our key making shop for numerous operations, my favorite is making sure the keyblank is held flat before CNC processing, which is critical for what we do.
Best regards,
-Dean Reyburn, RPT
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Dean Reyburn, RPT
Reyburn Pianoworks
Reyburn CyberTuner
1-616-498-9854
dean@reyburn.com
www.reyburnpianoworks.com
www.cybertuner.com
www.martysmasks.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dean.reyburn
Original Message:
Sent: 11-20-2020 21:42
From: Petrus Janssen
Subject: leveling keys
hello All,
i have the WNG key level stick and am about to level the keys. Is it best to use the straight edge or the side with the slight crown? I started with the crowned side, but when you slide your fingers over the keys towards the center of the keyboard, it's not smooth: you can definitely feel the little jumps even though they are very small.
Is there a preferred way (straight or crowned)?
thank you,
Peter
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Petrus Janssen
Peachtree City GA
678-416-8055
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