I spend most of my time with Yamaha CX/SX/CF, Bösendorfer, and old and new Steinways. But I have a client with Brodmann 213. It's a nice piano, but it behaves differently in some respects. For instance it has a 48mm blow distance, and the dip is close to 11mm so that tracks. My first instinct was to change that but I often adjust blow by tone, and this piano sounds right at 48mm, and it ain’t broke.
It’s not uncommon to use alcohol and water on the Renner jack center pins. Sometimes you have to re-pin as well. Their repetition levers have been extremely loose of late. I’ve done this both in and out of warranty. I rarely have to repin Yamaha centers.
The Brodmann 213 client had the jack centers repinned due to seizing. Now he's got hammer centers seizing. I repinned two which were really stuck and used alcohol and water on a dozen potential problem centers to see how they'd react. Jury is still out as I did that yesterday.
For pinning I am used to 6-7 swings per Yamaha and 1000 years as a piano tech, but the repinned 7 swing Brodmann B3 has a down weight 40g, up weight of 24g. And I’m not even getting into burnishing and/or alcohol resizing versus cutting felt as a philosophical approach, that is, the quality of the pinning job.
I started reading the Stanwood articles beginning with his first(?) in 1990 where he references an adjustable hammer centerpin. That got me thinking: was this piano spec'd for a 4-5 swing hammer? This apparently controversial concept was later abandoned, but curious as to y’all’s thoughts, and of the Langer UK action design used in Brodmann pianos.
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Vincent Chambers
Apollo Piano | Stanford University
San Francisco, Chico CA
(530) 924-4469 Mobile; 732-642-1100
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