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1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

  • 1.  1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 14:38

    I will be doing an action service on a 1970 Baldwin L, very good overall condition, which had the whippens, shanks and flanges, and hammers replaced 15 years ago  with "all Renner parts." The hammers appear to be Renner Blue Points. The owner complains that the piano has become very tiring to play after after 30-45 minutes (at least partly her health issues). Action geometry and key reweighting are not going to be addressed, at least at this time. I need to do what can be done to make playing feel "lighter" within the parameters of the current setup. Basic regulation is well within proper limits. I will check all of the usual friction points, clean and lubricate balance rail pins (the keys already move freely), check hammer flange pinning and correct where needed, probably use CLP or similar on all the action centers (there is no evidence of verdigris). What else? I definitely have room to move the hammer line a couple of mm closer to the strings. Damper lift off the key end is quite low, around 2mm. I could raise damper lift to 1/2 key travel, 5mm, that should make a noticeable difference. The hammers are quite worn, so they will get a pretty heavy filing; that should help. Any other suggestions?
    Thanks!!



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    David Trasoff
    Whatcom Piano Service
    (360) 389-2158
    david@whatcompianoservice.com
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  • 2.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 14:46
    Make sure drop isn't set too low. If the rep lever is contacting the drop screw too early it makes the action play like a truck.  Make sure you have adequate aftertouch.
    Check the damper upstop rail. It's almost always too high, and this means you feel a kick in your finger from when the damper jumps way up then falls back down. Generally you need to do something under the piano so the damper pedal doesn't shove the rail right back out of position. S&S uses a block of hammer felt with shims. Some pianos have a capstan. I forget what Baldwin does.
    Excessive spring strength can also make the action feel a bit "kicky". So check that too.






  • 3.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 15:22
    Baldwin frequently nails the upstop rail down with brads! I’ve seen that several times.


    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 15:35
    Oh yeah, that's right and this is probably Luke that. But the felt does compress and even the nail hole might elongate a bit, so it's worth checking.



    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 16:19
    There is a “bounce” off the end of the key, although the upstop rail is technically “correct” with the movement of the sharps. I will try to get away with lowering it a bit anyway.


    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 16:44
    Oh I mean... you don't want to lower it any further than is actually correct.  If the rail is low enough to start interfering with the actual keystroke then that will mess up the action feel.  You need a little bit of clearance.



    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 15:19
    David

    You're on the right track. Everything little thing helps when addressing heavy touch. One more little thing you can do is to "voice" the wippen heel. On Baldwin grands, the heel can get compacted, which not only makes the action noisy, but also heavy feeling. Brush the felt with a brass brush, and then take voicing needles to the side of the felt to loosen the fibers.  

    Wim Blees





  • 8.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 17:25

    I also like to "bolster" the whippen cloth with thin bushing cloth about 1/8" - 5/32" wide, assuming you can get underneath it. 

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



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    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 18:08

    Why not refelt the whippen cushions?



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    Parker Leigh RPT
    Winchester VA
    (540) 722-3865
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 20:09

    That too would be a viable alternative. 

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



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    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-21-2026 20:16

    Hey David,

    A cautionary sidebar: pianists tend to have a limited vocabulary in describing issues with pianos, due, no doubt, to their limited understanding of their instrument. Sometimes when they say that an action is "heavy", it means just that. But a surprising amount of the time, "heavy" may not mean heavy at all, but rather, "unfamiliar."

    I attended a class taught by one of our foremost luminaries that featured interaction with an accomplished concert pianist. We would send him out of the room, do different things to change the action, and then bring him back in to get his impression about how the action changed, compared to how it was before we monkey-ed around with it. There was at least one instance in which what we did definitely made the action objectively lighter, not heavier, and yet the pianist's reaction was that it made it heavier. Go figure, and good luck!



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    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-23-2026 14:31
    Terry

    Remove the action and activate the sostenuto. The damper will stick up after lifting the pedal. You will see that the tab on the damper lever is hung up on the sostenuto bar. Gently push the damper wire back, towards the belly rail, and activate the sostenuto again. Chances are, that's all that is necessary to solve the problem. If anything, just repeat that procedure. 

    If that doesn't solve the problem, you will need to adjust the whole rail. 

    Wim Blees





  • 13.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 02-27-2026 14:31

    This sounds like a perfect situation for the "cut punching" AKA "Half-moon punching" procedure. You slice each balance rail punching at the edge of it's hole and glue the smaller piece to the bottom of the key at the back edge of the balance rail hole. I believe this is David Stanwood's invention. It effectively moves the fulcrum a few mm away from the player, reducing DW by something like 7 grams. I've done it many times with great success.



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    John Pope
    University of Kentucky School of Music
    Lexington, KY
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  • 14.  RE: 1970 Baldwin L, owner complains of a "heavy touch"

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 03-04-2026 01:43

    A follow-up post after the service call and work. Before starting I had checked downweight at various points and it was all over the map. While I'm sure that all of the steps taken were useful and necessary, especially changing the damper lift timing and damper stop rail setting, I noticed that although the keys did not seem heavily bound at the balance rail (a la Yamaha/Kawai) the feeling was still odd. Since I had intended to polish the balance rail pins anyway, when I removed the keys I saw that the technician who had replaced the action parts 15 years ago had glue-sized the balance rail pin hole in the keys. After adjusting as and where needed to get just enough free movement and reassembling the action, I found that downweight now measured consistently and evenly across the whole keyboard - high 50s in the bass graduating through mid 50s to high 40s in the high treble. Something interesting to watch out for on older, rebuilt instruments. 



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    David Trasoff
    Whatcom Piano Service
    (360) 389-2158
    david@whatcompianoservice.com
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