Weird, my bottle of 444 in liquid form says "flammable." Maybe they've changed the formula in the last year?

Insanity, you've received lots of valuable information here. A couple of things that haven't been mentioned to check:

Balance rail holes on the bottoms of the keys. These can be inconsistent, especially with humidity changes. There can also be interference within the bottom of the key mortise between the balance rail pin and wood. Good advice to first Flitz the pins and then spray McLube. If you are not a trained tech I'd advise getting help - you'll be removing the stack and the key stop rail, and the entire keyset. Might best be left to a pro. Plus, a pro could examine the keys and test for excessive friction if the pin lubrication doesn't help enough. There are special tools that can be used to remove excess wood in the mortise, as well as tools that can ease the balance rail hole. If you do this yourself you need to know that you could easily, and irreparably, damage the keys.

Another thing to check is the adjustment of the damper stop rail - it will mess with the feel of the action if it is not set just right.

And before doing anything else, keyframe bedding should be done, all action screws tightened, and hammershanks traveled and spaced. Wippens should be traveled and spaced. The hammer flanges should definitely be tested for good, consistent pinning. I've only worked on a couple of Hamburgs and they were cool, but I've read that they sometimes have issues with the factory-applied graphite in the bushing cloth.

I also took note of a comment you made - that applying teflon didn't do anything. Well, I'm wondering if the knuckles are overly caked with graphite. If that's the case, might be good to flush away the gunk, which requires the use of a nasty solvent - then you could try the teflon powder or Larry's trick with McLube 444 on the reps and jack tips. Good luck!

Insanity,

(I feel weird referring to you thus, but whatever...)

Just to be clear, when you check the lead situation as I suggested and/or measure the front weights, as Larry suggested, you are checking the same thing, but with different intents.

In just eye-balling the general level of lead installed on each key front you are looking at how much mass has been added to the keys to achieve the given down weight. By the number of weights, You will be, in a very general and non-precise way, be seeing what the mass of the system is. Combined with other observation this may or may not give a clue as how much inertia the system contains..like I said, it's very general.

Measuring the front weights does the same thing, but with much more definition and precision. It helps to determine precisely how much mass had to be added to the key fronts to achieve a given down weight.

As I said, the difference between the two, the observation & the measurement is the intent.

The eye-balling is something that I would use on the fly with a client. Combined with other observations and measurements it might help me get, a very general sense, of what the action geometry is. Along with other observations, it would help me quickly figure out what to talk to the client about.

Measuring the front weights is something to undertake when you are honing-in on how precisely you might have to deal with/adjust/redesign the actions leverage/inertia. It's part of the analysis that precedes the re-design process.


Jim Ialeggio

It's very difficult to play pianissimo without proper after touch.

From this thread about the effect of too little aftertouch. Forgot to mention it before.

Could this have been the reason for PianoMax's better sound in this thread? See his note about adjusting let-off down the page.

Ian

Couple of thots re: friction... one is that flange friction is IMHO far greater concern than any type of lubricating. After you check the hammer flange, check the back and jack flange. Any one of those will create undesired friction.

Q: Has anyone used mica powder instead of teflon? I threw out my teflon about 6 years ago... never looked back. I wrote a blog about this if anyone's interested:
http://www.pianoHQ.com/piano-blog/page/7

It's called making no-stick stick.
Cheers

Sorry for not replying for a more than a week. I just returned from enjoying a week in London, after finishing my final MD exams.

I have taken a look at the lead situation:
Keys 1-20 approx 4 leads
-30, 3 leads
-40, 2.5 leads
-50, 2 leads
-60 1.5 leads
-70 1 lead
-88 0.5 leads

Can someone comment on these findings please?

I have also reduced key dip by adding a 0.4mm punching to all keys except the bass.
This has proven to be a good decision. The action seems now much more controllable and when playing normally I am rather in the mp/mf than in forte. And playing pp is easier.
With this new key dip I will now continue to experiment with more or less aftertouch.

If you simply added the punchings with no other adjustments yet, remember that in addition to reducing dip, you also reduced aftertouch now to a slightly more reasonable level (from previous posts sounds like somewhere around 1.4mm (.055"). The amount of aftertouch changes, for many pianists, the feel of the action.

It also means that if you had a 9.75mm (.383") dip before and you reduced dip with the punchings by .4mm (.015") you are at about 9.35mm. (370") dip. For a person of slight build, who likes to play in chamber sized spaces at chamber sized dynamics, 9.35mm can feel real nice...fast and responsive, if coupled with other complimentary specs. This dip is where I have the dip set on my instrument(which is a light inertia action). Some folks really love it, including some folks who swore they wanted more dip and resistance...as well, there are some folks want more dip and more resistance...different strokes.

How are you measuring aftertouch?

Regarding the leads, that doesn't look too bad as a rough estimate starting point,especially for a B, though I prefer less weight in the keys. A direct action ratio measurement would be useful.

If this dip/aftertouch is working better for you, I would play with the regulation parameters with this new dip and see if your fingers and hands can be happy with the existing leverage and hammer weights...no better way to learn than to test the limits.

At some point you may want to revisit the adjustments to the jack position and rep lever height. I know you said they are adjusted to specs, but this is a really picky adjustment and can really help repetition. As well, play with the drop...this setting can also do wonderful things to the feel of the action.

Congrats on your exams.

Jim Ialeggio

Sorry for bringing back the thread. But I really wanted to give an update of what I've done and how happy I am with it.
During the last few weeks I tried multiple adjustments and I think I finally found what I was looking for.

1. I used frontrail punchings to reduce key dip to about 9.3mm. I the bass this was not possible because raising the hammerline there would prevent the action from sliding in and out, but I done care if I have a little more dip there. Doesn't disturb me so far
2. Although I said, all repetition springs were already set equally but rather on the strong side, which they were, I reduced their tension a bit and I was massively surprised how this changed the feel of the action. Especially when playing pp and repetition in pp.
3. Because of adjustment no. 2, I started to notice the effect on touch of different hammerdip settings. I think I setteled for about 1.5-2mm.

Before all this, one problem was a bit too much friction in the hammerflanges. A bit of Protek did wonders there! Before reducing this friction I set let off pretty high, actually a little too high, to achieve a pp. Now I was able to get even better pp results with more let off distance.

To summarize for other non-Pros: Protek did wonders, never underestimate the effect of repetition spring tension on touch.
--> high friction in flanges requires stronger rep springs -> protek -> lower friction -> dont neglect to reduce repetition spring tension too!!!

Now I have found was I was looking for. I really want to say thanks to this forum for providing professional help to non professionals! This is not something to take for granted!

p.S. I initially started this thread with the upweight, down weight diagramm. I have not remeasured it since. But because this diagramm was measured already after protek had been applied, I don't think it could have changed very much. But now, I don't really care anymore if it looks perfect or not, because I can now confirm that other settings than static down and upweight are much more important to the feel of touch and overall action.

Greetings,
Back to the original chart, and the question of friction inconsistency. It is a mistake to overlook the knuckle/mortise interface. Much has been said about this or that lube, but clean leather on burnished graphite is about as low friction as you are likely to see. I have often resurfaced knuckles with a strip of 220 sandpaper, then a very strong vacuum nozzle on them to clean them of any abrasive or loose leather. Many of these actions have been under my care for 30 years, and this procedure does not ruin knuckles.
What I haven't seen mentioned is the treatment of the bearing surfaces on the mortise. If they are graphited, then you need to burnish the mortises and the top of the jack, taking care not to greatly increase the radius of the leading edge of the jack, (which affects the feel at let-off). This procedure can change your friction by a great amount, and in turn, change all the chart info. All it takes is a mirror-smooth rounded surface to burnish them till shiny. Try that and take a few new measurments.
Regards,

Ed,

These are fascinating tips. Do you remove the "caked-on" graphite before sanding the knuckles? Does the sanding technique work even when the knuckles have seriously deep indentations from the jack and rep, or when they have flattened out?

And what type of tool do you use for burnishing the jack and rep lever?

I much prefer to replace hammershanks, but there are times I have to regulate with old parts, so........
I sand the knuckles to remove the outer layer of caked on stuff, the ridges left by the mortice and the jack, and a small bit of the leather on the proximal side of the contact patch between the knuckle and the whippen. I usually use a 220 grit strip that is about one inch wide, with packing tape on the back to reinforce it as well as making it slippery.
There have been techs in the area that thought paste graphite was the way to go for knuckles, and it takes surface removal to leave a usable knuckle. If there is really a lot of goo, I may start with 150 grit, and it doesn't take much pressure to clean them off. Then I finish with 220.
Facing the action from the backcheck side, I put all the hammershanks upright, and then beginning at one end, I pull one shank at a time down and hold the sandpaper against the knuckle by letting it run over my finger, which is held up against the proximal side of the knuckle between the knuckle and the flange, touching the underside of the hammer shank. One or two pulls is usually all it takes to smooth over the surface. I do this before regulating, since any poorly spaced hammers and whippens will leave ridges on the knuckle surface where they are not supposed to be, which, in turn, prevents any stability in regulation.
If I have really flattened knuckles, (not everyone will go for new shanks), I have found it effective to tighten the leather by pushing a toothpick between the distal side of the felt and the leather. This pulls the covering tighter, is quick, and nobody sees the bulge out of the distal side of the knuckle. A small drop of glue will keep the plug in place. I have bolstered knuckles with all sorts of things; embroidery thread, thin bushing cloth, etc. but found that the results didn't perform any better than just tightening the leather by pulling it forward with a toothpick. Flat ones don't pull as much as the round ones, so there is some leeway there. Or, you can split them to get twice as many out of a box.

I burnish with a screwdriver blade made for the combo handle, (I don't use the handle). I have ground it round on the edges, sanded with several grits of fine wet/dry and then polished it to a mirror finish on the wheel. At a chapter meeting on friction, the several notes that were way high on a new action didn't respond much to easing keybushings, lubing centers and capstan pads, etc. BUT, 10 seconds of burnishing on the mortice and jack brought the balance weight way down. It can make a 5-8 gram difference in the down/upweight.
hope that helps.
Hope that helps.

Thanks Ed!