On my upright, I've noticed the keys get lighter as you go up the piano (duh), but a bit too much for my liking. This is one of those weirdos where they keys actually default to the depressed position with the aciton lifted off. The top end of the piano actually doesn't return promply when played (don't think it's action friction).

In any case, I'm thinking of incorporating weights, but I have a couple of concerns... I've heard that even if weight is added so it decreases the touch weight, that it's harder on the hands because the overall mass of the mechanism is greater. This isn't that big a deal to me, as I'm sure many pianos have more to them than this one in that regard.

On that same note though (excuse the pun), is it generally true that increasing the overall mass of the mechanism would then make it more difficult to play quietly? Seems to me that it would, but I have no idea how pronounced the effect might be.

On an upright the weight is usually added to the back of the key and is usually added to INCREASE the touch-weight not DECREASE it as you mention above. Upright keys are a lot lighter than grand keys, and more often than not weighting the back of the key improves the performance of an upright if it does not have any weights. On uprights, spring tensions also significantly effect touch-weight.

The so called "Jiffy Leads" screw on to the back of the key, so they can be removed if you decide you don't like them. I had a friend who put some on with strong Velcro so that he could move them around and play the piano a while so he could figure out what he liked. Jiffy leads are fairly large so they are generally going to sit fairly close to the fulcrum. The advantage of this is that a larger weight near the fulcrum has less inertia then a smaller weight farther from the fulcrum. That was one of the concepts behind the Steinway accelerated action.

Yeah I was thinking of Jiffy weights. I like the idea of them being close to the fulcrum though, hadn't thought of that.

Those that have used this method, is one weight per key enough (just adjusting how far back on the key to put it)?

Another thing I'm wondering is how you folks feel about whether sharps should have the same weight. Obviously, when your hands have to go forward on the keys, the white ones become "heavier" thanks to the loss of leverage. I'm not sure how it'd feel if the sharps were heavier...to feel closer to the white keys...or if they were lighter, to accomodate some of the compromising hand positions of certain composers *coughLisztcough*.

So a standard thing...a preference? Feel free to post me a link if I've failed to read this somewhere else. I feel like I have, but don't remember where :-P.

What your describing could be caused by tight key bushings.

Good point, Dave.

Key weighting is usually done only after controlling the friction and regulating the piano.

You can use nickles and dimes to assess the weight. A nickle weighs 5 grams and a dime is a little over 2 grams.

Subtract the upweight from the downweight and divide by 2 to get grams of friction. 10-15 grams is in the normal range. 45-55 is a normal range for down weight. You should probably have at least 15 grams of upweight.

I have a teenage customer with a console that had poor key return and an overly light touch. We decided on 1/2 jiffy lead about halfway between the fulcrum and capstan. This was put on the underside of the key and the ones for sharps were placed proportionally. The customer was VERY happy. I believe they are now upgrading to a small grand!

Could somebody put some pictures of that "jiffy weights" here?

Look at the right hand side of page 40 "Jiffy Key Leads":

https://www.pianoparts.com/ipscat.pdf