Pianotech

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Floyd,

Although it may not seem necessary to do any needling on those Ronsen Weickerts, in my experience with them some shoulder work never hurts and often moves the needle from good to even better.

As for the question of, "To juice or not to juice..." do you have a key pounder? If you can get your hands on one, even just to borrow it and try it out on this piano, would get you the sound you would prefer (played in, rather than hardened), and far more evenly than people playing pieces could ever do.

Best,

Alan

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

It will eventually brighten up if it's a practice room piano but a Ronsen hammer is a bit soft for a young chang which demands a somewhat firmer hammer usually.  I usually find that the center can be left alone more than the top section or the bass in terms of balance  I still prefer Pianotek's Pianolac (not sure if Schaff is selling that) as the go to stiffener because it's soft setting, meaning it doesn't get that "crystalline" sound.  

I'd make a 25% solution with lacquer thinner and put it right on the crown from about F5 to the top.  Do it with drops and watch and stop once the liquid just penetrates to the top of the molding  

In the bass put three or four drops on the crown  if you want to bring up the midrange some make a 15-20% solution and apply the same way as the treble.

Lightly sugar coat the crown as needed to smooth things out  

That should give the hammers enough of a head start to allow them to develop without getting harsh. 

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

Thanks David.

There's a photo that has lived in my imagination for years.  I went looking for it today, and it turns out it came from you.

Does Lacquer Destroy Tension?

I'm trying to figure out the best order of operations in achieving an optimum tone.  I installed a set of 14 lb Weickerts in a Kawai GS-30 some time back.  The first thing I did after letting them play in a little was to add lacquer according to the Erwin/Negron Protocol:

Voicing the Ronsen Weickert special hammers

The results were satisfying, but the photo referenced above made me inclined to stop seeing hardeners as my first step.

In installed a set of Renner Blue Points, which also feature Weickert felt, in our Yamaha CF, and decided to work with shoulder needling before I pulled out my bottles of hardener.  I didn't get where I wanted to go.  I then did some hardening with B-72, which helped, but still did not take me the distance.  I got a new perspective on the instrument when we brought on a new piano instructor, who suggested that the action was a way too heavy.  I had, in fact, increased hammer weight in response to a misunderstanding of something that David Stanwood said in an online workshop I had watched.  Bringing the hammers down to the Stanwood 7 strike weight zone was transformative.  Pulling weight in a similar way off of the hammers of our Steinway D likewise resolved a long-standing voicing issue.

So I identified a field of factors that influenced my ability to find an appropriate tone -- the design of the resonance structures of the instrument, play-in time, hammer weight, strike point on the string, needle voicing and hardeners are the main players to which I am giving my attention.

I understand the tension characteristics of the Ronsen Weickerts to be a prime feature of their design, so I am inclined to put off the addition of hardeners until I've worked with the less invasive options. Earlier this month I pulled a signficant amount of weight off of the hammers.  I did some mid-shoulder needling on a sample hammer this morning, and it nudged me ever so slightly in the right direction, so I'm going to go there next.  As I mentioned above, play-in has been hampered by poor reception of the piano by our students--not that I blame them, given how it was with the hammers before I lightened them--together with the availability of a sufficient number of grand pianos in our practice area that allowed them to avoid it.  My inclination right now is to do some shoulder needling, allow some more playing-in, and probably to add some hardener a little down the road.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-14-2023 10:07
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

It will eventually brighten up if it's a practice room piano but a Ronsen hammer is a bit soft for a young chang which demands a somewhat firmer hammer usually.  I usually find that the center can be left alone more than the top section or the bass in terms of balance  I still prefer Pianotek's Pianolac (not sure if Schaff is selling that) as the go to stiffener because it's soft setting, meaning it doesn't get that "crystalline" sound.  

I'd make a 25% solution with lacquer thinner and put it right on the crown from about F5 to the top.  Do it with drops and watch and stop once the liquid just penetrates to the top of the molding  

In the bass put three or four drops on the crown  if you want to bring up the midrange some make a 15-20% solution and apply the same way as the treble.

Lightly sugar coat the crown as needed to smooth things out  

That should give the hammers enough of a head start to allow them to develop without getting harsh. 

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2023 19:06
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103
------------------------------

Floyd

I was reading through that discussion you posted the link to (from 2015). It was an interesting, sometimes contentious, discussion that addressed tension, spring rates, linear v non linear springs, coefficients of restitution, fun stuff! 

At the time I was interested in using tension to achieve hammer stiffness by the ability to stretch the felt rather than "press" (or harden) the felt, especially using heat. It led to the making of the "low-profile" hammer which does achieve a level of stiffness that obviates the need for lacquer or other hardeners. But I couldn't get a consistent result in the manufacturing. 

So now my voicing techniques focus on maintaining a high coefficient of restitution (COR an actual term when it comes to springs) in the hammer which basically means the speed and degree to which it springs back to its original form after it is compressed against the string. The degree will be connected to voicing stability. That's petty obvious. A hammer that doesn't return to its original form we could say plays or packs in, becomes more dense and the tone changes. We may or may not want that but generally stability is seen as a plus.  The speed at which it returns affects hammer string contract time and the less contact time, the less filtering of, especially, high partials (see The Five Lectures on The Acoustics of the Piano for a demonstration and graphic representation of that). 

So the idea was that a highly tensioned hammer achieved high a level of stiffness and a high COR-the best of both worlds without the use of chemicals. 

Moreover, needling, or the use of chemicals, can compromise the integrity of the felt (needling) or the resilience (chemicals) which can compromises the COR affecting both stability and hammer string contact time.  On the other hand, the use of chemicals stiffens they felt which prevents the hammer from compressing on the string as much which would filler out high partials and darken the tone so the tone gets brighter,  This are different paths to a similar, though not identical, outcome.  

When the hammer is too soft (too much compression) you don't have much choice but to stiffen it with the use of chemicals.  As to what part of the hammer needs to be stiffened, I still believe that is the area between the strike point and the tip of the molding. I've never really found that stiffening the shoulders with a strong solution was that effective-unless, of course, it wicks under the crown.  Obviously filing the hammers down and thinning the felt over the molding at the strike point also works.  That also tends to reduce the weight of the hammer which gets it off the string faster filtering less high partial energy, so the tone gets brighter.  

The bottom line is that there are different approaches that achieve similar, though, not identical, results and one has to choose at some point how you want to work or how you want to get there. But my general approach has been do no harm, or do as little harm as possible, to the integrity of the hammer because that ultimately affects the life of the hammer, something we should be mindful of. 

I wish I had a better answer for you.  We do have choices and those choices will move us in the direction we want, hopefully without unwanted consequences and I do think we should try and be aware of those consequences and make responsible choices that offer the least compromise to the integrity of the hammer.  If we have to jump through hoops to get where we want, or do things that are, indeed, compromising, we've probably chosen the wrong hammer for that piano.

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-16-2023 17:49
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Thanks David.

There's a photo that has lived in my imagination for years.  I went looking for it today, and it turns out it came from you.

Does Lacquer Destroy Tension?

I'm trying to figure out the best order of operations in achieving an optimum tone.  I installed a set of 14 lb Weickerts in a Kawai GS-30 some time back.  The first thing I did after letting them play in a little was to add lacquer according to the Erwin/Negron Protocol:

Voicing the Ronsen Weickert special hammers

The results were satisfying, but the photo referenced above made me inclined to stop seeing hardeners as my first step.

In installed a set of Renner Blue Points, which also feature Weickert felt, in our Yamaha CF, and decided to work with shoulder needling before I pulled out my bottles of hardener.  I didn't get where I wanted to go.  I then did some hardening with B-72, which helped, but still did not take me the distance.  I got a new perspective on the instrument when we brought on a new piano instructor, who suggested that the action was a way too heavy.  I had, in fact, increased hammer weight in response to a misunderstanding of something that David Stanwood said in an online workshop I had watched.  Bringing the hammers down to the Stanwood 7 strike weight zone was transformative.  Pulling weight in a similar way off of the hammers of our Steinway D likewise resolved a long-standing voicing issue.

So I identified a field of factors that influenced my ability to find an appropriate tone -- the design of the resonance structures of the instrument, play-in time, hammer weight, strike point on the string, needle voicing and hardeners are the main players to which I am giving my attention.

I understand the tension characteristics of the Ronsen Weickerts to be a prime feature of their design, so I am inclined to put off the addition of hardeners until I've worked with the less invasive options. Earlier this month I pulled a signficant amount of weight off of the hammers.  I did some mid-shoulder needling on a sample hammer this morning, and it nudged me ever so slightly in the right direction, so I'm going to go there next.  As I mentioned above, play-in has been hampered by poor reception of the piano by our students--not that I blame them, given how it was with the hammers before I lightened them--together with the availability of a sufficient number of grand pianos in our practice area that allowed them to avoid it.  My inclination right now is to do some shoulder needling, allow some more playing-in, and probably to add some hardener a little down the road.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-14-2023 10:07
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

It will eventually brighten up if it's a practice room piano but a Ronsen hammer is a bit soft for a young chang which demands a somewhat firmer hammer usually.  I usually find that the center can be left alone more than the top section or the bass in terms of balance  I still prefer Pianotek's Pianolac (not sure if Schaff is selling that) as the go to stiffener because it's soft setting, meaning it doesn't get that "crystalline" sound.  

I'd make a 25% solution with lacquer thinner and put it right on the crown from about F5 to the top.  Do it with drops and watch and stop once the liquid just penetrates to the top of the molding  

In the bass put three or four drops on the crown  if you want to bring up the midrange some make a 15-20% solution and apply the same way as the treble.

Lightly sugar coat the crown as needed to smooth things out  

That should give the hammers enough of a head start to allow them to develop without getting harsh. 

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2023 19:06
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103
------------------------------

David,

Thank you so much for your engagement.  So much of what I can do to benefit those whom I serve owes a great deal to the generosity of technicians, yourself included, who have been generous with knowledge--not only not stingy, but eager to do the work it takes to communicate effectively and helpfully.

Yes one of the elements that should have made it to my short-list above of tone-influencing factors is hammer selection itself.

And yes again, your past posts on low-profile hammers have been very much on my horizon.  Your post immediately above gives me some helpful perspective on all of that.

I still have one set of 14 lb Ronsen Weickerts from Pianotek sitting in the wrapper on my shelf.  Just for the fun of it, I'm going to list the grand pianos in our university collection at the bottom of this post, with the question of which of these pianos might be the most appropriate eventual destination for this set:

What might be a more workable choice of replacement hammer for our other Young Chang G-157?

University of Regina Grand Piano Inventory:

Young Chang G-157 1988 (2)

Yamaha G1 mid-1970s (3)

Yamaha C1 2000 (3)

Early 20th Century Gerhard Heintzman (5' 4") (1)

Early 20th Century Nordheimers (5' 8") (2)

Yamaha G2 1965/1970s (2)

Yamaha C2 1996 (5)

Yamaha G3 1965/1966 (2)

Yamaha C3 1969, 1977, 2010 (3)

Young Chang G-185 1988 (4)

Steinway A1 1893 (1)

Kawai GS-30 1981 (1)

Baldwin L 1965 (1)

Bösendorfer 200 - 1974 and 1975  (2)

Steinway B 1924/2004 Rebuild (1)

Yamaha CF 1986 (1)

Steinway D 1969 (1)

Mason & Hamlin CC 1977 (1)

Fazioli 278  2012 (1)

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-17-2023 01:05
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Floyd

I was reading through that discussion you posted the link to (from 2015). It was an interesting, sometimes contentious, discussion that addressed tension, spring rates, linear v non linear springs, coefficients of restitution, fun stuff! 

At the time I was interested in using tension to achieve hammer stiffness by the ability to stretch the felt rather than "press" (or harden) the felt, especially using heat. It led to the making of the "low-profile" hammer which does achieve a level of stiffness that obviates the need for lacquer or other hardeners. But I couldn't get a consistent result in the manufacturing. 

So now my voicing techniques focus on maintaining a high coefficient of restitution (COR an actual term when it comes to springs) in the hammer which basically means the speed and degree to which it springs back to its original form after it is compressed against the string. The degree will be connected to voicing stability. That's petty obvious. A hammer that doesn't return to its original form we could say plays or packs in, becomes more dense and the tone changes. We may or may not want that but generally stability is seen as a plus.  The speed at which it returns affects hammer string contract time and the less contact time, the less filtering of, especially, high partials (see The Five Lectures on The Acoustics of the Piano for a demonstration and graphic representation of that). 

So the idea was that a highly tensioned hammer achieved high a level of stiffness and a high COR-the best of both worlds without the use of chemicals. 

Moreover, needling, or the use of chemicals, can compromise the integrity of the felt (needling) or the resilience (chemicals) which can compromises the COR affecting both stability and hammer string contact time.  On the other hand, the use of chemicals stiffens they felt which prevents the hammer from compressing on the string as much which would filler out high partials and darken the tone so the tone gets brighter,  This are different paths to a similar, though not identical, outcome.  

When the hammer is too soft (too much compression) you don't have much choice but to stiffen it with the use of chemicals.  As to what part of the hammer needs to be stiffened, I still believe that is the area between the strike point and the tip of the molding. I've never really found that stiffening the shoulders with a strong solution was that effective-unless, of course, it wicks under the crown.  Obviously filing the hammers down and thinning the felt over the molding at the strike point also works.  That also tends to reduce the weight of the hammer which gets it off the string faster filtering less high partial energy, so the tone gets brighter.  

The bottom line is that there are different approaches that achieve similar, though, not identical, results and one has to choose at some point how you want to work or how you want to get there. But my general approach has been do no harm, or do as little harm as possible, to the integrity of the hammer because that ultimately affects the life of the hammer, something we should be mindful of. 

I wish I had a better answer for you.  We do have choices and those choices will move us in the direction we want, hopefully without unwanted consequences and I do think we should try and be aware of those consequences and make responsible choices that offer the least compromise to the integrity of the hammer.  If we have to jump through hoops to get where we want, or do things that are, indeed, compromising, we've probably chosen the wrong hammer for that piano.

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-16-2023 17:49
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Thanks David.

There's a photo that has lived in my imagination for years.  I went looking for it today, and it turns out it came from you.

Does Lacquer Destroy Tension?

I'm trying to figure out the best order of operations in achieving an optimum tone.  I installed a set of 14 lb Weickerts in a Kawai GS-30 some time back.  The first thing I did after letting them play in a little was to add lacquer according to the Erwin/Negron Protocol:

Voicing the Ronsen Weickert special hammers

The results were satisfying, but the photo referenced above made me inclined to stop seeing hardeners as my first step.

In installed a set of Renner Blue Points, which also feature Weickert felt, in our Yamaha CF, and decided to work with shoulder needling before I pulled out my bottles of hardener.  I didn't get where I wanted to go.  I then did some hardening with B-72, which helped, but still did not take me the distance.  I got a new perspective on the instrument when we brought on a new piano instructor, who suggested that the action was a way too heavy.  I had, in fact, increased hammer weight in response to a misunderstanding of something that David Stanwood said in an online workshop I had watched.  Bringing the hammers down to the Stanwood 7 strike weight zone was transformative.  Pulling weight in a similar way off of the hammers of our Steinway D likewise resolved a long-standing voicing issue.

So I identified a field of factors that influenced my ability to find an appropriate tone -- the design of the resonance structures of the instrument, play-in time, hammer weight, strike point on the string, needle voicing and hardeners are the main players to which I am giving my attention.

I understand the tension characteristics of the Ronsen Weickerts to be a prime feature of their design, so I am inclined to put off the addition of hardeners until I've worked with the less invasive options. Earlier this month I pulled a signficant amount of weight off of the hammers.  I did some mid-shoulder needling on a sample hammer this morning, and it nudged me ever so slightly in the right direction, so I'm going to go there next.  As I mentioned above, play-in has been hampered by poor reception of the piano by our students--not that I blame them, given how it was with the hammers before I lightened them--together with the availability of a sufficient number of grand pianos in our practice area that allowed them to avoid it.  My inclination right now is to do some shoulder needling, allow some more playing-in, and probably to add some hardener a little down the road.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-14-2023 10:07
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

It will eventually brighten up if it's a practice room piano but a Ronsen hammer is a bit soft for a young chang which demands a somewhat firmer hammer usually.  I usually find that the center can be left alone more than the top section or the bass in terms of balance  I still prefer Pianotek's Pianolac (not sure if Schaff is selling that) as the go to stiffener because it's soft setting, meaning it doesn't get that "crystalline" sound.  

I'd make a 25% solution with lacquer thinner and put it right on the crown from about F5 to the top.  Do it with drops and watch and stop once the liquid just penetrates to the top of the molding  

In the bass put three or four drops on the crown  if you want to bring up the midrange some make a 15-20% solution and apply the same way as the treble.

Lightly sugar coat the crown as needed to smooth things out  

That should give the hammers enough of a head start to allow them to develop without getting harsh. 

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2023 19:06
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103
------------------------------

David,

Thank you so much for your engagement.  So much of what I can do to benefit those whom I serve owes a great deal to the generosity of technicians, yourself included, who have been generous with knowledge--not only not stingy, but eager to do the work it takes to communicate effectively and helpfully.

Yes one of the elements that should have made it to my short-list above of tone-influencing factors is hammer selection itself.

And yes again, your past posts on low-profile hammers have been very much on my horizon.  Your post immediately above gives me some helpful perspective on all of that.

I still have one set of 14 lb Ronsen Weickerts from Pianotek sitting in the wrapper on my shelf.  Just for the fun of it, I'm going to list the grand pianos in our university collection at the bottom of this post, with the question of which of these pianos might be the most appropriate eventual destination for this set:

What might be a more workable choice of replacement hammer for our other Young Chang G-157?

University of Regina Grand Piano Inventory:

Young Chang G-157 1988 (2)

Yamaha G1 mid-1970s (3)

Yamaha C1 2000 (3)

Early 20th Century Gerhard Heintzman (5' 4") (1)

Early 20th Century Nordheimers (5' 8") (2)

Yamaha G2 1965/1970s (2)

Yamaha C2 1996 (5)

Yamaha G3 1965/1966 (2)

Yamaha C3 1969, 1977, 2010 (3)

Young Chang G-185 1988 (4)

Steinway A1 1893 (1)

Kawai GS-30 1981 (1)

Baldwin L 1965 (1)

Bösendorfer 200 - 1974 and 1975  (2)

Steinway B 1924/2004 Rebuild (1)

Yamaha CF 1986 (1)

Steinway D 1969 (1)

Mason & Hamlin CC 1977 (1)

Fazioli 278  2012 (1)

------------------------------
Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-17-2023 01:05
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Floyd

I was reading through that discussion you posted the link to (from 2015). It was an interesting, sometimes contentious, discussion that addressed tension, spring rates, linear v non linear springs, coefficients of restitution, fun stuff! 

At the time I was interested in using tension to achieve hammer stiffness by the ability to stretch the felt rather than "press" (or harden) the felt, especially using heat. It led to the making of the "low-profile" hammer which does achieve a level of stiffness that obviates the need for lacquer or other hardeners. But I couldn't get a consistent result in the manufacturing. 

So now my voicing techniques focus on maintaining a high coefficient of restitution (COR an actual term when it comes to springs) in the hammer which basically means the speed and degree to which it springs back to its original form after it is compressed against the string. The degree will be connected to voicing stability. That's petty obvious. A hammer that doesn't return to its original form we could say plays or packs in, becomes more dense and the tone changes. We may or may not want that but generally stability is seen as a plus.  The speed at which it returns affects hammer string contract time and the less contact time, the less filtering of, especially, high partials (see The Five Lectures on The Acoustics of the Piano for a demonstration and graphic representation of that). 

So the idea was that a highly tensioned hammer achieved high a level of stiffness and a high COR-the best of both worlds without the use of chemicals. 

Moreover, needling, or the use of chemicals, can compromise the integrity of the felt (needling) or the resilience (chemicals) which can compromises the COR affecting both stability and hammer string contact time.  On the other hand, the use of chemicals stiffens they felt which prevents the hammer from compressing on the string as much which would filler out high partials and darken the tone so the tone gets brighter,  This are different paths to a similar, though not identical, outcome.  

When the hammer is too soft (too much compression) you don't have much choice but to stiffen it with the use of chemicals.  As to what part of the hammer needs to be stiffened, I still believe that is the area between the strike point and the tip of the molding. I've never really found that stiffening the shoulders with a strong solution was that effective-unless, of course, it wicks under the crown.  Obviously filing the hammers down and thinning the felt over the molding at the strike point also works.  That also tends to reduce the weight of the hammer which gets it off the string faster filtering less high partial energy, so the tone gets brighter.  

The bottom line is that there are different approaches that achieve similar, though, not identical, results and one has to choose at some point how you want to work or how you want to get there. But my general approach has been do no harm, or do as little harm as possible, to the integrity of the hammer because that ultimately affects the life of the hammer, something we should be mindful of. 

I wish I had a better answer for you.  We do have choices and those choices will move us in the direction we want, hopefully without unwanted consequences and I do think we should try and be aware of those consequences and make responsible choices that offer the least compromise to the integrity of the hammer.  If we have to jump through hoops to get where we want, or do things that are, indeed, compromising, we've probably chosen the wrong hammer for that piano.

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David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-16-2023 17:49
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Thanks David.

There's a photo that has lived in my imagination for years.  I went looking for it today, and it turns out it came from you.

Does Lacquer Destroy Tension?

I'm trying to figure out the best order of operations in achieving an optimum tone.  I installed a set of 14 lb Weickerts in a Kawai GS-30 some time back.  The first thing I did after letting them play in a little was to add lacquer according to the Erwin/Negron Protocol:

Voicing the Ronsen Weickert special hammers

The results were satisfying, but the photo referenced above made me inclined to stop seeing hardeners as my first step.

In installed a set of Renner Blue Points, which also feature Weickert felt, in our Yamaha CF, and decided to work with shoulder needling before I pulled out my bottles of hardener.  I didn't get where I wanted to go.  I then did some hardening with B-72, which helped, but still did not take me the distance.  I got a new perspective on the instrument when we brought on a new piano instructor, who suggested that the action was a way too heavy.  I had, in fact, increased hammer weight in response to a misunderstanding of something that David Stanwood said in an online workshop I had watched.  Bringing the hammers down to the Stanwood 7 strike weight zone was transformative.  Pulling weight in a similar way off of the hammers of our Steinway D likewise resolved a long-standing voicing issue.

So I identified a field of factors that influenced my ability to find an appropriate tone -- the design of the resonance structures of the instrument, play-in time, hammer weight, strike point on the string, needle voicing and hardeners are the main players to which I am giving my attention.

I understand the tension characteristics of the Ronsen Weickerts to be a prime feature of their design, so I am inclined to put off the addition of hardeners until I've worked with the less invasive options. Earlier this month I pulled a signficant amount of weight off of the hammers.  I did some mid-shoulder needling on a sample hammer this morning, and it nudged me ever so slightly in the right direction, so I'm going to go there next.  As I mentioned above, play-in has been hampered by poor reception of the piano by our students--not that I blame them, given how it was with the hammers before I lightened them--together with the availability of a sufficient number of grand pianos in our practice area that allowed them to avoid it.  My inclination right now is to do some shoulder needling, allow some more playing-in, and probably to add some hardener a little down the road.

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Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103

Original Message:
Sent: 10-14-2023 10:07
From: David Love
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

It will eventually brighten up if it's a practice room piano but a Ronsen hammer is a bit soft for a young chang which demands a somewhat firmer hammer usually.  I usually find that the center can be left alone more than the top section or the bass in terms of balance  I still prefer Pianotek's Pianolac (not sure if Schaff is selling that) as the go to stiffener because it's soft setting, meaning it doesn't get that "crystalline" sound.  

I'd make a 25% solution with lacquer thinner and put it right on the crown from about F5 to the top.  Do it with drops and watch and stop once the liquid just penetrates to the top of the molding  

In the bass put three or four drops on the crown  if you want to bring up the midrange some make a 15-20% solution and apply the same way as the treble.

Lightly sugar coat the crown as needed to smooth things out  

That should give the hammers enough of a head start to allow them to develop without getting harsh. 

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David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320

Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2023 19:06
From: Floyd Gadd
Subject: Hot Rodding a 1988 Young Chang G-157

Among the grand pianos in our university collection we have six 1988 Young Chang grand pianos, two of which, both G-157s, are in our Department of Music collection.  I consider these to be of respectable design, though not particularly prestigious.  There has not been money for new instruments, so the path forward has been to make the most of what we have.

Some year ago I undertook to improve these two instruments.  I replaced the stock bass strings with a rescaled set from GC Piano.  The knuckles were noisy, so I replaced them with Tokiwas.  Action centers needed service to deal with excess friction, and at some point I replaced the key bushings.  Original hammer strike weights were somewhere around Stanwood 10, so I trimmed them down to Stanwood 8, and reweighted the key fronts to achieve something like a 38 gram balance weight.  I was not tuned in to the idea of establishing a smooth gradation of front weight across the scale, so I ended up with lots of variability.  Original hammers were reshaped and needle-voiced. The work I did was well received, and I was pleased with the improvement in musicality.

Some time later I prepped a set of Ronsen Weickert 14 lb hammers from Pianotek for installation.  I remember working to match the  weight profile of what was already in the piano, so that would have been Stanwood 8.  The project got stalled, and the hammers sat on the shelf for several years.

Last year I got around to installing the hammers.  Also last year, I replaced the plain wire strings, using the original diameters, but employing a Paulello hybrid scale, which meant using some Type 0 wire in the lower tenor area.  Since the piano was in our practice area, I decided not to use hardener on the hammers, but to let them play in for a year.

The piano did not get a lot of love from our students.  After a year it still lacked in power and brightness.  I had seen some significant improvement in this area in a couple of other pianos when I lightened their hammers due to the perception of excessive effort needed to achieve desired dynamics, so I chose to revisit hammer weight before I resorted to chemical hardeners.

It turned out that my strike weights, once the hammers were mounted on the shanks, were sitting closer to Stanwood 9.  I pulled the weights down to Stanwood 7, which, since I wanted to protect the width of the crowns and tails, took me in the direction of an hour-glass appearance in terms of hammer shape. (Trying to achieve Stanwood 7 with Ronson Weickert 14lb hammers from Pianotek is not something I would recommend, but I was already committed to them.)  I arrived at the Stanwood 7 spec by shooting for a 38g balance weight at hammer 40, with a front weight of 27g.  I sampled C's across several octaves, confirming that I was somewhere close to my objective.

Once the new hammer weights were established, I weighed off the action, and established what change in Front Weight would be needed to achieve a consistent balance weight of 38 grams.  I then graphed the calculated new front weights in Excel, and extracted a trend line, which I used as my spec in resetting the key front weights.  I ended up with a slightly higher front weight for note 40, at 28.9 grams.  The whole set of front weights was more consistent with Stanwood's FW#9 as set out in this month's Journal.  That comes out to an inertial playing quality of Firm -1, again as set out in the October Journal.

My impression at this point is that the tone is very warm, and that some signficant brightness has been gained, but not enough.  I think the piano is now in a condition to attract a higher level of use by our students, so I'm still putting of the use of lacquer or B72.  I want to see what happens as they play in some more.

What do you think?  Is my expectation of getting to the goal without hardeners realistic?  I don't think I've done any needling at all on the hammers.  Other than the machining and weight reduction, they're pretty much as they came out of the wrapper.

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Floyd Gadd RPT
Regina SK
(306) 502-9103
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