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Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

  • 1.  Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-24-2019 20:43
    I've got a friend in the south of France for whom I have started tuning who's had a local piano technician of high repute refurbish his Steinway M of around 1925 vintage.

    The hammers have been replaced but aren't aligned evenly with the strings and they don't allow the Una Corda pedal to work.

    The original hammer flanges were the tapered sort upon which one could apply the standard tool but the technician has replaced them with what I assume to be current Steinway oblong flanges which I assume serve no purpose other than to catch out non-Steinway trained technicians. I'd have advised sending off the old hammers and flanges to Abel to be refelted rather than replaced and certainly for servicing and adjustment the old flanges, as Renner

    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Curator and House Tuner - Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex UK
    antespam@gmail.com

    Seminar 6th May 2019 - http://hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/tuning-seminar.pdf "The Importance of Tuning for Better Performance"
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-24-2019 21:24
    David,

    I am thoroughly confused regarding tapered or oblong hammer flanges.  Any additional info?

    Also, it sounds like it really needs about a 3-4 day reconditioning and regulation, etc.

    Pwg

    ------------------------------
    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    603-686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-24-2019 21:32
    There is no way to align steinway flanges other than either to cross paper, or slide the whole flange a fraction of an inch along the rail, which generally gets you no where. There were never Renner style flanges, unless the action rails were replaced with a normal rational action frame at some point.  Aligning and fixing the una- chorda problem is a long and frustrating process...no way around it, other than to change out the frame. As Peter says, you are looking at some serious time to correct..

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 10:41
      |   view attached
    Thanks. I'm sure that when I tuned the instrument last year before the hammers were changed that I used a standard hammer alignment tool to obtain precise hitting on all tricords.

    As can be seen the installation of the hammer flanges is far from even.

    When testing the instrument much sounds hard, at low and high volumes, with a couple of notes sounding warm in the treble octave and others sticking out louder than the rest, without variation of tone between loud and soft. The owner of the instrument was aware of the technician sanding the heads, and I found a lot of felt-dust on the keyboard. Whether any pricking has been done I've no idea but is it ever necessary to sand a set of new genuine heads? 

    I think the hammers seem more rounded than olive shape and one can see a different colour of the felt between the sanded and the original surface. . . . 

    I'm advising the instrument's owner to get along a friend who is a Steinway artist so expert in the Steinway sound and then if appropriate to ask of Steinway about the work.

    I note the generosity of information from everyone on this forum with https://my.ptg.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=43&MID=217936 and it's a real shame that the technician who did the work didn't consult such expertise.

    Best wishes

    David P


    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Curator and House Tuner - Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex UK
    antespam@gmail.com

    Seminar 6th May 2019 - http://hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/tuning-seminar.pdf "The Importance of Tuning for Better Performance"
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 11:45
    Hello David - I'm SURE you could not have used a Renner-type hammer flange spacing tool on an S&S. Renner flanges do not fit an S&S hammer flange rail. When those hammers were replaced all the careful spacing by paper strips under the flanges were simply destroyed by removal and will need to be re-inserted one-by-one. Big, time-consuming job.    Michael   UK

    ------------------------------
    Michael Gamble
    semi retired
    Brighton
    01273813612
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-26-2019 18:00
    The point is that the steinway action frame is such an insane and arcane structure, that precise adjustment of all 3 parameters; travel, square, alignment cannot physically be accomplished. Adjustung any one of those parameters upsets the other two, because of the profile of the rails. Any installation using the steinway rail profile is always a compromise.

    Steinway claims their frame is essential to the sound. Besides the usual steinway bullshit, they are correct, in that the steinway sound is thus defined by poor mating and its attendent tonal issues.

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 12:27
    I wanted to respectfully say that I don't share the opinion that the Steinway action frame is an insane and arcane structure and that precise adjustment of all 3 parameters; travel, square, and alignment cannot physically be accomplished. I also feel that the Steinway sound is not defined by poor mating and other attendant tonal issues; although poor mating and alignment causes huge tonal issues. 

        Having said that, I want to be clear, I have often noted, even on new Steinways, the need for further alignment, especially hammer alignment. In fact, the issue of alignment is one of the main issues in any action and tone regulation. It is a factor when prepping any piano new or otherwise. 

        In particular, I have noted alignment issues when technicians have purchased new Steinway shanks and flanges with the hammers glued to the shanks. It appears that they screwed the new parts to the rail, assuming the new parts will line up properly to the wippens and then to the strings. That's not going to happen. 

        When it comes to aligning Steinway shanks, flanges, and hammers, the approach is different than other pianos. Once you understand how things work, it's gratifying and not difficult to accomplish. The same goes for voicing. Steinway hammers work differently than many other pianos. 

        I believe the issue initially raised has nothing to do with Steinway, their parts or design. It has everything to do with the knowledge and experience of the one installing the new parts. That is not to say that this person isn't an excellent technician. But it does suggest that he may not be experienced working with Steinway pianos. Or, there may be other factors we're simply not aware of. In any event, I don't think there is a need to criticize Steinway over this issue.

    ------------------------------
    Rick Butler
    Bowie MD
    240 396 7480
    RickRickRickRickRick
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 12:35
    Purposely/accidentally building in some chance/randomness can be a musical plus. What if all singers sounded just like Pavorotti? Could get boring. :)


  • 9.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 13:18

    Jim,

    You're so correct about the Steinway flange. Many years ago the Steinway Company sent a factory technician – substituted by a sales representative – to the Seattle retailer to a one-day seminar for local technicians. An issue raised by the salesperson was the design of the Steinway rosette flange, claiming the wraparound design provided better stability. Several technicians (names, many technicians would recognize) looked at each other with defined grimace. While nobody confronted the salesperson, several technicians, in private, aired their distaste with the flange design pointing out the opposite –stability is compromised because of the process needed to space hammers.

     

    David Pinnegar,

    Your post doesn't directly ask a question, but suggests you're prospecting for approval for re-felting the moldings with Abel. If correct, I would suggest you ask yourself, where you got the idea that re-felting hammers is an effective – both economically and practical – viable methodology? Did this idea come from a technician of "high repute"? If you're a regular reader of this PTG forum, you would have learned that a vast majority of technicians do not recommend a high density hammer installed on a nearly 100 year old piano, regardless of the convoluted process of sending these hammer moldings attached to the shank and flanges to a third party. Reading between your lines suggests you believe your technician of "high repute" made (or should have made) the correct technical decision with this refurbishment. There are times when we as technicians must assess a bad job and ask if it is better to start over rather than shore up the previous technicians mishap. 






  • 10.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 14:08
    I've too have always understood that the design of the Steinway rail was for stability. In what way? 

    One of the criteria for our technical exam - under grand regulation - requires that the wippen be centered above the capstan. It also requires the knuckle to be centered over the repetition lever. Logic would suggest that when those two things occur, the hammershank would then be centered over wippen rest cushion. 

    Given that criteria, in a perfect world, a hammershank which has been correctly traveled and a hammer which is correctly glued to the shank, would then travel to the string and strike the string as designed. Of course, we don't live in a perfect world. 

    Have you ever wondered why some pianos have rest rails instead of rest cushions on their wippens? Think about that. 

    The profile of the Steinway rail does appear to be designed to keep the hammershank centered over the wippen. That doesn't mean there isn't any wiggle room. 

    I believe such a design contributes greatly to their objective. Other manufacturers have used a pin inserted into a wooden hammershank rail to stabilize their flanges. Steinway has chosen to accomplish that same objective in a different way. In either instance, stability is improved.

    ------------------------------
    Rick Butler
    Bowie MD
    240 396 7480
    RickRickRickRickRick
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 14:42
    Rick,
    If I understand your comments, I believe you have missed the fundamental point. It is a given that all pianos will need some spacing of many of their shanks. The basic flat rail design requires loosening of the screw move the flange left or right retighten screw. The flange-to-rail contact area is 100%. With Steinway the flange-to-rail contact point is limited to the travel paper points only. Also, I thought about the rest rail verses cushion design. I don't see your point.
    Roger





  • 12.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 15:09
    I'm writing clumsily on a tablet waiting for the plane home having been to the Cannes Film Festival and just popped over to see my friend in a neighbouring town. I have a collection of instruments at Hammerwood Park in Sussex which I tune and with the expertise of a wonderful friend not unknown to PTG members are maintained. I'll tune for whoever asks me but I'm not in the refurbishment business commercially. 

    I'm not angling for a refelting job by Abel. But on my 1885 Bechstein the result of my technician friend known here was truly impeccable.

    But having done a tuning well regarded by the owner of the Steinway and the concert pianists who have sampled it, it's a disappointment to me to see me friend spend out on what was intended to be top work by someone who clearly doesn't know about Steinway. 

    I'm now starting to have sympathy with Steinway for incorporating booby traps to catch out incompetence or unwillingness to find out.

    After this technician had burnished the strings some treble strings have been self beating which made my second tuning more difficult.  The first tuning before the work was a dream to do, but the second the instrument fought me. Reblitz gives a clue to my suspicion but cannot comment further until I go back in a month or two and inspect the bridge. I didn't want to believe it but finding the instrument left as finished with uneven voicing and the una corda not working suggests a level of........ 

    In suspicion that the technician doesn't really know what he's doing I asked the question about sanding the new hammers. The tops are now rather more circular than olive shaped.

    The sound is hard, unpleasant and just two notes in the treble octave are sweet. The tone doesn't vary between soft and loud, merely more piercing.

    Best wishes 





  • 13.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 19:02
    David, people have skirted around the question of papering the Steinway rosette flanges and using burn in on the shanks, but no one has described how to do this.

    Spacing: you can use half length strips under the flanges to change the hammer alignment to the strings. I call if half-papering. Take a normal travel strip -- gummed paper, I like the brown paper package tape which can still be found on Ebay.  I used to use the margins of postage stamps bought in a sheet, which were a little thinner and very handy, but all stamps are now self-adhesive. Anyway, take a normal travel strip and tear it in half, so you have two short pieces. You put one piece under the front side of the flange and the other under the opposite rear side. This fools the flange into thinking that the rail is a very slightly different angle, and the hammer will move to one side. I've heard of doing this with only one half strip, but I think it's more secure and stable by using both, on opposite sides.

    Of course, as I was taught early on, you always paper the flange and never the rail. And you always use travel strips with glue on them, not just loose paper or card, like I see in some Asian grands, where you take off a flange and the travel paper falls off.

    Also, the screw holes are just slightly larger than the shanks of the flange screws, so you can pull them just a little to one side or the other. In a pinch, you can enlarge the screw holes by a tiny amount with a round file.

    Once the hammers are fairly well aligned with the strings, you can move on to traveling. This is done by paper, but the approach is different. You use a full strip on one side or the other. It can go right over the half papering if necessary. For a minor change, you can use a narrower strip, glued toward the edge of the flange.

    As Joel Rappaport pointed out in an excellent seminar I attended, traveling like this will slightly change the angle of the hammer because the flange will be not quite as horizontal as before. This can then be fixed by burning the shanks with an alcohol lamp, twisting them slightly, or by pulling the hammers off and regluing them. If the original installation was poorly done, you might need to do some of this anyway, but you'll need to do it after the spacing and traveling are finished.

    As for centering the shanks over the wippens, the wippens also sometimes need spacing with paper. In rare instances, they can use a little bit of traveling too, but not nearly as much or as often as the hammers do. Since they are 90 degrees different than the hammer flanges, the approach is different. With the wippens, half-papering would travel them, but also make them tilt just slightly. To space them, you use a full strip (two if necessary, of course) under one side of the flange. Having a mental picture of which way the flange will change its angle when spaced with a strip of paper will show you which side to put the paper on. When spacing wippens, you also have to consider where the jack tender is meeting the letoff button, though there is some leeway. If a hammer is well traveled and spaced properly, and the wippen has been spaced so the shank is centered above it, but the jack tender is way off center, consider whether traveling the wippen might help.

    Once again, you can get some spacing of a wippen by slightly enlarging the size of the wippen flange screw hole so you can simply pull the flange slightly to the side.

    As for voicing, if these are New York hammers (or American hammers, relatively cold pressed and not as dense and heavy as hot-pressed hammers), repeatedly stabbing the shoulders will likely not do you much good. I get better results by using a chopstick tool, also known as the Hart voicing tool, which is a brass rod with one needle in the end. It's called a chopstick tool because originally people would put a short length of needle into the end of a Chinese bamboo chopstick. I keep the needle quite short, between 1/4" and 1/3". The method I use on NY Steinway hammers, best when they are relatively new, is to put the needle in at a fairly shallow angle starting slightly in front of the string groove. Of course this is done with the action in place, a great convenience. If you mute the note so you can play each string alone in turn, you can spot which is the brightest and needle that one first. Ideally, they should all sound about the same. If the note is still stubbornly too bright, you can get somewhat more effect by going straight down into the hammer vertically.

    Of course you'll also need to check the shift voicing, which may call for needling vertically, in between the string grooves. And if the left side of the hammer hasn't been slightly chamfered with a sandpaper hammer file, it sometimes has a little bit of lacquer on it which can be very bright in shift position. Normally this would be taken care of at installation, but it sounds like you can't count on that.

    Also, it sounds like the hammers have been filed, and not to the ideal shape, which is just slightly diamond shaped. The shape comes from the way the hammers are pressed. It's what you get if your filing exactly removes a layer without cutting into a lower one. If you have a lot of changes to make with the spacing and traveling, and the hammers have already been filed, you will need to go over the hammer shaping to assure that the strike surface is completely horizontal and mated to the strings. The more the piano has been played with the hammers off angle and spaced badly, the more work you'll have to do to shape them and voice them after making corrections.

    For the top octave, which often has been over-juiced, especially for a private home, I like putting just a few drops of vodka (VERY LITTLE) right in the string grooves. There is little felt up there, and it is hardened by the juice which makes it difficult to fluff up with a needle and easy to tear. Using the vodka very modestly can take away the "ice pick in your ears" sounds without damaging or removing any felt. Also, while it will smell somewhat like a bar room for a short time, the vodka evaporates leaving nothing behind, and it is non-toxic. All it does is change the texture of the felt just slightly, and only the outer layer. I don't use "real" vodka. I take 190 proof bulk ethanol from the liquor store, and cut it half and half with tap water, keeping it in a dropper bottle in a ziploc bag in my kit. A little goes a long way. It's also handy to soften glue if you need to extract an upright hammer from a broken shank, and it's a mild disinfectant if you get a minor cut. 

    If a few hammers are more dull or over-needled compared to their peers, you can often even them up, getting them a little bit brighter, by pressing the string down halfway back (or wherever you can reach) with one hand, while banging the note hard with the other hand. It is relatively temporary, but can greatly aid evenness of voicing. I've never knocked a note out of tune doing this, but of course you'll have to check for this.

    All of this sounds like a lot of work, and of course it is the first few times you do it, but I've found it to be highly satisfying, giving excellent results. It's like buying yourself some high quality tools, and keeping them in perfect order and condition, and knowing how to get the best from them. Expensive, but worth every penny.

    I'm enclosing 2 photos of a voicing block given to me by Ted Sambell. These started being used by technicians around Calgary, Alberta. I believe it was invented by Chris Gregg. It can file the strike face of a hammer, any string chosen, or any two strings, or all at once, to restore an exact angle and to correct string mating. A great time-saver. This one is made of cocobolo but ordinary softwood works fine. It's made using a large Forstner bit, with strips of 400 grit sandpaper glued in the curved grooves. There are four curves, two on each side, of differeing depths. The photos show it on a board with 1/2 inch squares in it, to give scale.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 19:20
    Correction: the photos show the voicing block on a board with 1/2 INCH squares on it, to give scale.

    For the country which just said no to the metric system.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 22:22
    Susan,
    Could you repeat that?
    Roger





  • 16.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-26-2019 00:56
    <grin> If the list can spare the bandwidth.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-07-2019 23:17
    Greetings,
       The rosette rails of Steinway are no problem if the flanges are stable.  I use the WNG parts now,and do my papering with metal tape, (oo4") used by the HVAC industry.  The alignments are closer to permanent than any other configuration. No shanks twisting with the seasons, so there is no burning to be done.  If there was, it is totally consistent and easy to control very minor angles. 

       Reading about the papering, I do things differently.  My beginning point, when installing them on the rail, is to space them as evenly as possible at the knuckle, since this is where the whippens will arrive. Not all rails have the screw holes consistently spaced, so I like to begin near the middle of everything I can.   I travel the shanks before I begin to space them to the strings. Often, I can do both with one piece of tape, i.e. if the flange is traveling to the right, but hitting the string properly, a half piece of tape under the near right corner of the flange cause the traveling to move left but the flange will swing right.  Otherwise, I space by using the two opposing corners, so my traveling isn't affected. 
    Regards,

    ------------------------------
    Ed Foote RPT
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-08-2019 03:42
    Susan - this is an excellent treatise on Papering the Steinway. 
    I have printed it and added it to my Max Matthias "Leitfaden zur Pflege" - for the information on this aspect of preparing the Steinway is somewhat sparse in that book. 
    I am working with David Pinnegar at his large country house named Hammerwood Park (Google it) We are currently preparing his 1883 Broadwood short grand (in which the wrest pins are threaded 1/4" BSF - likewise the web-plate), his 1819 Broadwood Fortepiano and  1802 Stodart. I have restrung his Emerich Betsy fortepiano 1853 (?) using Roslau Blues - very satisfactory. We're also in the process of refurbishing the "Halle" 1859 Broadwood Concert Grand (ex-Finchcocks museum) - and various other Harpsichords and pianos. Today David is mounting a Recital at Hammerwood in which he staunchly promotes O.T.  usually Kellner etc. All very interesting. His main recital piano is a 1895 Bechstein 7'10" Grand which David keeps at A=440 Kellner. 
    I'm really very retired after 26 years at Glyndebourne, have lost my hearing and voluntarily given up driving (much to the relief of other road users I'm sure) and, while I type this, my wife Corina is raising money for Macmillan Cancer Research by walking, with many others, from Brighton to Eastbourne - some 26 miles - along the South Downs Way. (you can Google that too on Google Maps) Our son Maxim is in his Final year at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he is on a B.A. Course of Theatre Technology. For his Graduation Project he developed and wrote a Computer Programme called "The Guildhall Machine". This project took him six weeks during which he had to learn and use JAVA. You can enjoy this here:  < grad.maximgamble.com >
    Michael  UK






  • 19.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-25-2019 16:06
    Hi Roger,

    Using a rest rail allows for easy adjustment in two areas. First, it allows the shank to be moved left or right without regard to the shank being centered over the wippen. Second, the height of the rest rail is adjustable. Both have advantages in manufacture (hammerblow - keybed to string height) and future ease of regulation. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to this arrangement. I'm not saying one is better than the other; I'm just saying they're different. How one chooses to deal with irregularities in manufacture often has to do with the price point of the instrument. 

    Regarding the issue of Steinway's action rail, my experience suggests that the problem of spacing is often, but not always, due to the shank twisting as it ages. Sometimes, the hammers were never glued to the shanks correctly in the first place. In either event, 'burning' or 'casting' of the hammers is of the first order. (I'm not necessarily saying that you never travel first and cast second.) Once a hammer correctly follows the path of the hammershank - regardless of the direction the hammershank is traveling - the hammer can then be directed to the string by traveling the hammershanks. None of this is to say that you don't move the flanges on the rail. But the issue of 100% contact with the rail goes out the window if you use paper underneath the flange whether the flange is flat or shaped. 

    To be candid, I've earned my living servicing Steinway's, both in the home and on the concert stage for nearly 40 years. So, I don't have much experience servicing other pianos. I've never found the hammershank flange contact with the hammershank rail to be an issue. That is not to say that I haven't had to deal with string/hammer alignment issues. But once addressed, I believe the Steinway grand action is as stable as any other piano. But maybe I'm biased. :-)

    ------------------------------
    Rick Butler
    Bowie MD
    240 396 7480
    RickRickRickRickRick
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 18:20
    Rick< How one chooses to deal with irregularities in manufacture often has to do with the price point of the instrument.
    I think not. We will have to scrape up yet another explanation for the design of these rails. Fazioli and most if not all other tier one instruments employ a flat hammer rail...this fact does not support the price point argument.

    The point of my original response was that its one thing for  a company to hawk marketing BS and build unrealistic expectations geared at sales. Keep it in the sales room. It quite something else, to hamstring the folks on the ground, with that same BS, which makes their job unnecessarily harder, and to boot makes them feel like they are lacking in some unspecified transcendent knowledge, which only anointed Steinway believers possesses. 

    Technicians who show up on site to deal with these pianos, need to know that they are being challenged by an impossible physical situation, which will require compromise. The impossible situation is imposed by Steinway's design of the rail. This situation is unnecessary, as you mention in your discussion of hammer rest rail.  Given Steinway's rail design, the 3 parameters of mating cannot physically be met. If there is any disagreement between string/strike point location, key stick location, location of the stack on the keyframe, side to side soldered location of the rails relative to the brackets, and discrepancies between side-to-side locations of the hammer and wip rails within the stack, all bets are off. The reality of the rail design forces one to prioritize which parameter they choose to compromise.  

    You describe how you choose to compromise the mating. Other techs might choose differently, but compromise the mating they will. This means, the sound of these pianos is to some degree defined by a certain level of mating inaccuracy. Its a physical reality.

    My point in this post, is to speak out loud, to relieve techs of the sense of inadequacy they often display (having rebuilt these rails for many techs across the country), thinking that their issues with these actions are the fault of their own ignorance. The issues are the result of Steinway's design...ie don't buy their BS...deal with the reality...expect inaccuracy and compromise as the reality...and let go of the technician-defeating marketing spiel.  
    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 18:55
    It's clear that I must have misremembered having adjusted the original hammers as being of the same design it would have been impossible. 

    However one would expect a technician claiming familiarity with Steinway to be cognizant of all the matters discussed on https://my.ptg.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=43&MID=217936 in taking measurements or tracing of striking points with the dampers out etc to recreate the adjustments.

    The technician concerned left the job with the customer as finished, with una corda inoperable. The customer has friends who play and concert pianists who visit but I don't think plays himself, so would see shiny strings newly burnished (I believe with consequences putting appearance over function, but subject to my checking the bridge on close inspection), and voiced unevenly and sounding harsh, the brand new hammers having been sanded.

    Are brand new Steinway hammers in the middle section of semicircular profile or more egg or olive shape? Should they have been sanded? There was a lot of felt dust on the keyboard. 

    Best wishes 

    David P

    ------------------------------
    David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
    Curator and House Tuner - Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex UK
    antespam@gmail.com

    Seminar 6th May 2019 - http://hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/tuning-seminar.pdf "The Importance of Tuning for Better Performance"
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 05-25-2019 11:40
    I agree, Peter - My own S&S 'A' (1914) has standard Steinway hammer flanges - as does the model M David is referring to (see his attached photo). The 'tapered' flanges David mentions are standard Renner flanges - and have no place in a S&S! Whilst adjusting for U/C: in the case of Renner flanges, the usual method is use of the standard long hammer flange tool. In the case of S&S the method is the use of paper strips under one side of the flange. This is laborious - but the only method.  Michael   UK

    ------------------------------
    Michael Gamble
    semi retired
    Brighton
    01273813612
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 05-31-2019 23:47
    Just to confuse matters a bit more, consider item # 1567 in the Renner catalog, described as ​Flange Spacer for
    Steinway/Baldwin. It will only work in some sections, where there is enough space between flanges.  I've never seen an 'official' explanation as to how tool is used and when appropriate, but it would seem to operate counter to the procedure of cross-papering.  It would seem to compromise the stability that the design is supposed to establish.

    David P - 
    In assessing the work done, it would have helped to have more pictures - of the hammers especially.
    You say that the una corda was left inoperable. How?  In what way?  Did the action shift position?  Were the hammers set  to miss the left string when action shifted to the right, or were all three strings still being struck?  Both approaches are valid.

    If your friend has a relationship of any sort with the technician of high repute who did the work, he should first try to allow that individual to respond to the complaints by finishing the work unless he has become convinced that repute is unfounded

    ------------------------------
    David Skolnik [RPT]
    Hastings-on-Hudson NY
    917-589-2625
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-01-2019 18:38
    This is gold dust and good news.


    The keyboard movement was restricted to not much more than 2 or 3 mm or so and the third string was struck always.

    My friend has a friend who's a Steinway Artist and will be making a visit so as to view the quality of the work from a perspective of what's reasonably to be expected from a Steinway.

    Personally I'm not happy about the number of strings which are self-beating since the strings were cleaned/burnished, and which therefore make tuning more complex.

    Best wishes

    David P

    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594





  • 25.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-01-2019 23:24
    David P -
    A response I had started disappeared mid-writing, so I'll start over: 

    This is gold dust and good news.
    http://www.pianofortesupply.com/tools/regulating-tools/flange-spacer-grand/grand-flange-spacer-steinway-yamaha-renner-2/  seems to be it.
    Yes, that's the tool, but, as I said, I'm not sure that this is a stable way to achieve spacing, as opposed to cross-papering.
    The keyboard movement was restricted to not much more than 2 or 3 mm or so and the third string was struck always.
    3mm is equal to 1/8".  If the hammers were spaced to strings with the intention of missing the left string, 3mm would certainly be adequate movement.  If, on the other hand, the intent was to remain in contact with all three strings, 3mm might be a bit excessive.
    My friend has a friend who's a Steinway Artist and will be making a visit so as to view the quality of the work from a perspective of what's reasonably to be expected from a Steinway.
    The technician should be given a chance to address the issues.

    Personally I'm not happy about the number of strings which are self-beating since the strings were cleaned/burnished, and which therefore make tuning more complex.
    I assume that 'self-beating' are what we tend to refer to as 'false beats'. Whether or not they emerged as a result of string cleaning, it would seem to be a separate issue from that of spacing hammers to strings, a functioning Una Corda, or voicing. A lot to cover in one thread.

    David Skolnik


    ------------------------------
    David Skolnik [RPT]
    Hastings-on-Hudson NY
    917-589-2625
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 10:37
    I agree with David regarding that spacing tool. On a Steinway rail, the tool and apparent move will deflect the center, and if it lasts at all, the alignment will shift back before the check clears. Papering or casting(I prefer not to cast), are tedious, papering being the most tedious, and time consuming. But, in my experience these are the only long term adjustments.

    Frankly, I feel the same way, though to a lesser degree, even with flat hammer rails. Without loosening the flange screw on a flat rail, travel papers will often be compromised or dislodged by forcing a rotation on a tightly screwed flange. I prefer to align out of the piano aiming the hammers to an mark on a string target.  In the piano, if one gently loosens the flange, then rotates, the positional memory often un-does the correction, so having the action out of the piano, and referencing an accurate target, is much more effective.

    This seemingly simple task, is actually one of the regulating tasks that I find more consuming, than I would like it to be, and tends to be somewhat frustrating, in setting up a new action or set of shanks/hammers.  The frustration level elevates trying to accomplish this in a whirlwind on-site regulation.

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 10:55
    There is really only one way to adjust the lateral striking position in the Steinway Grand - you cannot 'twist' the Hammer flange on the Rail - as doable with Renner tapered flanges - for the profile of both precludes this.
    Papering the flange is this only option. This is the wonderful thing about the design - once it's there, it's there - and there's an end to it. I simply cannot accept the use of any flange twisting tool for the standard Steinway flange - apart from which these flanges are spaced so close together anyway as to not allow for the insertion of that tool with space to twist.
    I cannot see why this 'twisiting' discussion is taking place..  
    Michael  UK





  • 28.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-02-2019 13:15

    I agree. The half-papering, one front versus the opposite rear, works and is stable. Any attempt to loosen the screw, manipulate the flange spacing, and retighten the screw is not effective or durable. Even if the size of the screw hole allows some slight side-to-side motion, any old  dent from the screw head will tend to move the flange back to its original position as the screw is tightened. The Steinway rails have a black cloth cover, not sandpaper like a lot of flat rails. It doesn't immobilize the flange as well, or at all, really. Steinways don't depend on a gritty rail surface to secure flanges which have some leeway for spacing, like some other brands do.

    Papering to correct traveling, Steinway or not, works. It's a unique characteristic of the Steinway metal-clad rails that paper can also correct spacing. Okay, it's time consuming, but you end up with something worth having. I feel the same way about dealing with friction problems by repinning instead of spraying lubricants. Especially when dealing with the (always Asian) failing nickel center pin plating, only repinning will do, and it will be permanent. The sprays -- often over time they will gum up, and I don't like fouling bushing cloth with "stuff." If it goes wrong, you can't get it back out. In fact, Steinway soaking their parts with "stuff" is how they ended up with the verdigris problem for so many years in the first place, which is probably why those Steinway M parts needed replacing -- which takes us back to the start of this thread, poorly fitted new Steinway parts, because someone didn't know how to paper them or didn't want to spend the time to get them right.



    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 29.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 14:42
    In Max Matthias book 'Leitfaden zur Pflege eines Steinway' published by Verlag Erwin Bochinsky, (It is written in both German and English) there are two references to aligning and travelling hammers on page 98:

    2.5 Aligning hammers to strings

    .  . . .  proceed to align the hammers on the string unisons in such a way that the bass hammers (one third) and treble hammers (two thirds) pass over the strings. At the bass end, the hammers should be positioned on center. In the treble region. a give-and-take method can be resorted to by displacing the strings. As already described in connection with the supports, this is carried out by unscrewing the hammer shank flanges and placing paper strips underneath.

    2.6 Traveling the hammers

    The hammers are made to travel through i.e. a batch of hammers is made to move upwards slowly by means of a wooden strip placed under the shanks. While this is going on, check to see whether the hammers are all moving in alignment or whether any deviations are ascertainable while movement is in progress. Any irregularities must be evened out by placing paper washers or shims underneath the respective hammer shank flanges.  &c. &c.

    Anyone with a Steinway or a piano technician should have this book.   Michael   UK






  • 30.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-02-2019 15:03
    Max Matthias book about Steinway:

    Correct, Michael. I do have this book.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 31.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-02-2019 13:18
    Michael, I think that the "twisting" discussion is taking place because someone doens't want to learn something new, and wants a faster and more familiar solution. Only in this case, "twisting" is more a delusion than a solution.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 18:29
    Susan - it's not at all that I don't want to learn something. It's a matter of seeing if an how there's any chance of getting a piano owner and a technician with an ego the size of an elephant out of a hole without a commotion-stirring argument. If there's a quick fix that I can accomplish on a couple of hours' visit that would get them out of argument then it's worth trying. 

    Put it another way, we have an organiser of an International Piano Competition and a technician to a major opera house registered with EuroPiano on both sides and if we can get them out of a situation which will otherwise end up in some sort of ugliness all the better.

    It's quite clear that the technician who quoted for the job should have taken a tracing from the strike point on the strings when he had the dampers out before he took the hammers out, but didn't, or taken note of where papers were previously but didn't.

    I'm around 900 miles away and time when I'm there is under pressure so it's got to be either a job that the technician concerned undertakes and finishes sincerely, or one that I can apply a quick fix to without fuss or expenditure of time. From the responses in this thread it looks likely that the piano owner will have to apply the thumbscrews upon the technician - but from what I've heard so far even when the hammers are aligned properly I'm not impressed by the voicing.

    Best wishes

    David P
    --
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    +44 1342 850594





  • 33.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 18:47
    Its not your pickle...leave them to the mess they got themselves into...you are not going to improve it in a short remote session. It needs more than spacing the hammers. The voicing is indicative of problems such as terminations, proper hammer choice, 1925 tired board, mating, etc etc etc. 

    hmmm...Come to think of it, I've been hankering for one of those amazing Kosher "New" pickles all weekend...better go do something about that!

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 34.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-02-2019 20:02
    Sounds like you are in a situation. David. Good luck with it.

    Well, it doesn't hurt to know how to approach a technical problem like this in the future. Practice makes perfect, of course. The technician with the ego as big as all outdoors is a separate issue, and not really up to you to fix, unless both parties wish your help in the matter.

    The placement of paper on the old flanges doesn't matter, because it's not the rail which is at fault, it's the flanges themselves, due to necessarily imperfect drilling of the center pin holes. I've seen the disaster which results from having the papers left on the rail when new flanges were installed on top of them. I had to remedy a job where the spacing and traveling of the new hammers was atrocious due to leaving old paper on the rail and just blindly installing the new flanges with minimal spacing and no traveling at all. The traveling was so horrid that I took before and after photos (at rest and with the hammer raised, both before and after) so that if need be I could prove what I had had to deal with. I was afraid that correcting this job (also done by someone with a very inflated reputation) might rise up and bite me. It didn't, of course, thank heavens, but I did keep very quiet about it. 

    There are ways to space Steinway hammers to strings without removing the dampers. First, the string grooves in the hammers bear witness to where the strings are. After adjusting the spacing from the string grooves, first fixing the worst of the traveling and seeing what changes that makes in the spacing, and filing the hammers, the string locations can be marked onto the hammers to get spacing more exact by using a piece of carbon paper facing upwards, taped under the strings. Play the notes to leave some carbon on the underside of the strings, then play the notes without the carbon paper, and the carbon will show where the strings are. Of course it's easier to space the hammers right to begin with, but it can be corrected later on.

    Filing the hammers in the process of correcting the spacing and traveling, and then fitting them to the strings (eliminating "open strings") of course would improve the voicing considerably, and then one could deal with the rest.

    If the owner and the technician do not understand the depth of the problem, and that there is no quick fix for it, they perhaps should be left to get on with whatever contumely they jointly want to produce, in their own time. If you come across a similar piano with fewer emotional problems attached, I can recommend taking your time, working through the issues as per my overly long treatise and the other posts in this thread, and enjoying the results and the newly acquired expertise. The improvements after fixing such problems can be very rewarding, and you could then discard your original attitude that Steinway does this to technicians on purpose by keeping their procedures secret -- they do not; North American technicians share their ways of dealing with such issues freely, and spacing and traveling hammers on the metal clad rails is in no way impossible. If we get good at it, more than technicians in the UK, it's because we see more pianos with the metal rails here, and more of them have had parts replaced. There is a whole subclass of Steinways, now gradually becoming less common, with teflon parts which were then replaced, often resulting in extreme geometry problems. Of course we needed to get good at dealing with such situations.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 35.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 21:57
    Susan,

    I'm curious about your experience with taking alignment locations off of the old string marks. This makes sense, as the hammers know where the strings actually are as indicated by the grooves. ...But...(and I have spent much time working this question, because on-site alignment of S&S hammers is such a pain in the ass. Cross papering mucks with travel, and casting mucks with verticality of the strike)...my experience is that the marks do not give a reliable final reference. Work on-site, sometimes significant alignment work, with the new action, on-site is almost always required. I have spent much discussion time with other techs, who experience the same lateral inaccuracy, trying to figure out why the string marks, which seem like such a reasonable idea, still requires sometimes lots of corrections on-site.  We agree that the empirical location, using the string marks, ends up giving so-so info...but we all scratch out heads about why. Doesn't really make sense.

    I can think of several reasons why the reading ends up with bogus locations:
    1- string marks can be deep and wide, so the mark location is a guess
    2- old hammers are swinging on very sloppy centers, so the strike, as evidenced by tonal issues, is a wobble strike, thus imparting bogus info on the string mark...or loose centers allow the hammer to shift  laterally into the indentation as it approaches the string
    3- any change in strike point, especially in the cross stringed bass or other angles strings vastly changes lateral position of strike
    4- any change in treble strike point, front to back, also mucks with the lateral location of the strike.
    5-holding the old shank/hammer up to a target to record locations, given old worn centers, one can easily deflect the lateral strike location, because we don't know how out-of vertical, the old shanks were propelled by the whips and loose centers.  

    Curious about your thoughts on this.
    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 22:18
    Remember in Steinways there is always the possibility that the rail has split, making dependable spacing impossible.

    ------------------------------
    Ed Sutton
    ed440@me.com
    (980) 254-7413
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-02-2019 23:40
    Yup...and also, that many times I end up moving the stack, because it was placed or elevated incorrectly to start with, thus shifting everything from the word go.

    ------------------------------
    Jim Ialeggio
    grandpianosolutions.com
    Shirley, MA
    978 425-9026
    ------------------------------



  • 38.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-03-2019 04:13
    Hi, Jim

    I can't be much help with these issues, because what I was working with were pretty new hammers, shanks and flanges, which some unknown people had installed to replace verdigrised parts. I like to get the shift voicing just so, which requires excellent spacing and traveling. With no wobble in the centers and with the somewhat non-centered string marks filed off, the carbon paper marks work well.

    I agree, spacing old hammers on site would be a true pain. The first requirement would be to repin them so that they have proper friction and no wobble, and the second requirement would be filing them enough that they didn't tend to slide back into the old string grooves. At that point, many techs would rather reach for new parts --  but I have found that they are not universally well spaced and traveled either. Some do, some don't.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------



  • 39.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Posted 06-03-2019 02:24
    Susan - I totally agree.  Michael  UK





  • 40.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Member
    Posted 06-03-2019 11:51
    I agree with Rick Butler. The engineering is such that all the parts line up. My forte is mostly spacial relationships and I did best in Mechanical Engineering and Physics. After sitting in Dale Erwins shop setting up actions,, taking the action with all new parts hung, finding the case parts and setting key height, it came down to even spacing. Dale wouldn't use Steinway parts. Kent Webb had sent some new ones to try after they retooled. 
    So I'm having difficulty with part aligning and Dale was talking to Kent. Kent said that exact same thing. The capstan, screw holes,,,, everything lines up. Sometimes it was really hard to find the original set up and realize this because so many people have worked on a 1925. 

    It clicked for me. I started putting the flanges dead center on the screw holes. Then I made the space between the flanges equal by eye. This corrects any misplacement. You travel the wippens using the spacing,,, making them parallel. Same with the hammer flanges. Travel those like Spurlock,, put a ruler or stick under the shanks in a section. Travel the two shanks on the ends. Clip the ruler to the traveled shanks and do the rest. 
    I found the bend in the shanks was worse than the pinning so when I straightened hammers, I could get a little of the bend out. The cross paper spacing was almost nothing.
    Now you fit the action to the strings,,,,, Find the right replacement felt on the left action stop block that puts the hammers under the right spot on the strings. This was always the worst felt in the whole piano and if someone replaced it,,,, As good as Dale is, getting the plate within a mm of where it was before you replaced the board is tough. 



    ------------------------------
    Keith Roberts
    owner
    Hathaway Pines CA
    209-728-2163
    ------------------------------



  • 41.  RE: Steinway M hammer refurbishment and alignment

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-03-2019 14:20
    That's a really good description of how it is supposed to work.

    If you need a different thickness of cloth to set the rest position for the shift, you can put thin card under the cloth till it is exactly right.

    ------------------------------
    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
    ------------------------------