At Larry Buck's shop, I had the pleasure of playing a Baldwin L that he just restored from damage caused by a tornado. As always, the pianos he rebuilds or refurbishes have a wonderful, sweet tone that I've just never heard from any piano in any piano store (not that I claim to have played all brands)--the man definitely knows his stuff. Additionally, he outfitted this Baldwin with a Wessel, Nickel, and Gross composite action,and this is the first time I've played a piano with this action. It felt excellent by any standard. By modifying the action ratio, replacing the brass capstans with the WN&G hard-anodized aluminum capstans, and installing the WN&G wippens, Larry was able to take lots of mass and moment of inertia out of the action, and what was formerly a heavy action played like butter--smooth and even. Because of the configurability offered by the action, Larry was able to pick different wippen-heel heights for the black and white keys so the heel/capstan interface passed through the line of centers at mid stroke. I also noticed that the WN&G wippens need no lubrication. The top of the balancier and the top of the jacks are highly polished where they contact the nuckle. The best part of this is not that they don't need lubrication, but that there is no lubrication to wear off, and therefore friction will be more stable over time. I've been interested in the WN&G action, and it was nice to see how well it performs.

Interesting write-up, Roy. You've got me wanting to play that piano... if only I could play!

Rick

Thanks for posting. Any idea what something like this would cost? I have an L and I am in need of a complete Action rebuild.

C

Complete parts replacement?

WNG pricing is confidential, but I will tell you that parts for a complete WNG action, plus shipping, is over $3,000 by a fair amount. On top of that, you should expect to pay between $50-100/hour in labor, and possibly sales tax. I couldn't give you an accurate time estimate because I've never done a complete action replacement, but I'd expect the total cost of this project to be at least $7,000. Action regulation alone will be at least $500 and key re-balancing will be at least $1,500.

I have a Baldwin R from 1983. I have always liked the tone of the piano but the action always seemed alot heavier then other pianos that I played. In October of last year I decided to finally try and do some research and see what might be done to lighten the action. I went down to Cunningham's - they are only a few miles from my house - and I talked to Tim about the WNG option to replace my action parts. That option was way to expensive for me. He had another option that they had done on a few of their pianos. I played these pianos and was very impressed with the feel of the action, it was just what I was looking for. One of their techs - Kurt Weissman - was sent out to my house to take some measurements and weights of my action. It was indeed very heavy as I suspected.
He offered me a couple of options . I decided to go with a partial PTD (Precision Touch Design by Stanwood). This included new Renner Bluepoints hammers, new shanks and the moving of the knuckles that was determined by Kurt's measurements and a full regulation.
The action went back to Cunninghams for about 10 days. Kurt came back and did a full regulation and voicing of the new hammers. I cannot tell you how happy I am with the new action, it plays like a new piano and the weight is just as I wanted it.
Rich and Tim are great people to deal with and Kurt did an excellent job on the action.
Guess you can tell I'm pretty happy with my decision !!!

Most unsatisfactory actions can be made acceptable by having them regulated, at a cost of a few hundred dollars, not several thousand spent on modifying the action or replacing perfectly adequate parts. You are just throwing your money away if you do not have your action regulated before you consider more expensive work.

We see a lot of Baldwin actions that are just wrong from the factory. No amount of regulation will make them anything other than well regulated dysfunctional actions. They have problems ranging from bad geometry to crazy amounts of mass often compounded with poor workmanship.
And it is true that some clients may find actions that I consider to be severely wrong to be perfectly acceptable, but when they play something that I consider to be objectively correct, they may begin to understand the limits of their formerly "acceptable" actions.

In the case of Baldwins, there are usually sound issues that when improved will make the piano feel much better.

Larry's Baldwin L sounds like a delight. I would love to check it out.

By the way, I really like Baldwin pianos, at least when they are working right. Much more so than many other pianos out there. When a Baldwin is working right, it has power and color variety. They can be very expressive and satisfying when right.

I think it is important to point out that techs that are familiar with proper action design and how to get an action to work correctly will be able to distinguish between problems that can be corrected with basic work such as regulating and removing friction, and actions that have deeper issues and require more involved corrections.

Many actions can be made acceptable with just adjusting, however, I don't need to regulate an action with a high hammer weight sitting on a 6.5 ratio to know that parts are going to have to change to make it play well. Many Baldwin action improve considerably when the hammershanks are replace with something more in line with the rest of the action.
My current action job is a WNG replacement of a 1889 Steinway B action. Previous "rebuild" used stock factory hammer/shank parts. These were 17 mm knuckle distance whippens. It took .420" key dip to move the hammer through let-off, and had very little aftertouch, at that. There was no way to regulate this action into acceptable condition.
Regards,

As I said, most unsatisfactory actions can be made acceptable by having them regulated, at a cost of a few hundred dollars, not several thousand spent on modifying the action or replacing perfectly adequate parts. You are just throwing your money away if you do not have your action regulated before you consider more expensive work.

I will add that more piano actions are ruined through incompetent replacement of parts than by regulation.

This is my experience as well. My Baldwin, which is the same model as the OP's (but older), had outrageously heavy touch weight when we bought it from the rebuilder. It eventually bugged me enough to Stanwoodize the action. This made sense because the parts were just a few years old, but I see little point in going this route on original action parts from the early 1900's. I'd advocate for total parts replacement, including the action rails and brackets, and the damper action. I really, really dislike the Baldwin action brackets.

Thank You Roy.

It is interesting that many folks buy pianos that they end up not liking.

In this particular case, the Baldwin L was a great sounding piano with tremendous potential. The owners and their teacher found the piano unbearable to play and requested certain changes.

Regulation was not going to make the necessary changes. Only specific changes to the geometry would. These changes were also modeled to verify they were viable.

I have to give some credit to WNG. I used their composite repetitions and designed the particular configuration I needed.

Also, to Ray at Ronsen who made the hammers to my custom specifications.

I did use the original rails. There was not an unlimited budget. The repetition rail was modified to accept the WNG Reps. I do agree though, the new WNG rails are very nice and if budget permitted, I would have used them

The client is thrilled.

Interestingly, The Baldwin, in it's original configuration, may have been very desirable for a concert pianist who needed a piano at home to practice on, that best imitated the challenge of the average 9' concert piano in concert halls.

You decided this without trying?

Every decision was modeled.

Including the regulation decision.

Though, some "affects" are clear indicators ... and you see these regardless of regulation.

Does that mean you did not try regulating before selling the owners on the expensive job?

Ugh......if an experienced technician recognizes that regulation is not the answer, he should not waste the client's time and money doing something unnecessary

A good and experienced tech can recognise when this is the case.

Do you tune broken strings to find out if it is a tuning issue rather than a broken string issue?

Tuning a piano with a broken string is a good way to find out whether it is just that string, or all the strings. Do you see a broken string and restring the piano, rather than just repairing the string that is broken?

A good and experienced piano tech can do a lot more with the parts that came in the piano than someone who has to replace everything.

Incidentally, I think the concern over wasting a few hours of a client's time in order to save many weeks is overblown. If wasting money is a concern, one can always refund at least some of it when doing the larger job.

As I pointed out, several notes in this piano were regulated in the process of making a decision. Oh yea, as was mentioned in the original post, this piano was in a room torn off by a tornado ... HAD to be rebuilt.

So I suppose BDB, you are stuck on this point of yours for some "academic" reason.

It is not academic. Most problems with actions are problems with regulating. By the time that anyone would normally be in the position of considering replacing parts in an action, the action would have been deemed acceptable by any number of people beforehand. So it is far more likely that a piano just needs adjustment, rather than wholesale replacement.

My comment was not directed at this particular piano. It was more directed to counter those people (with numbers at the end of their user names) who are continually pushing unproven and expensive alternatives to good old decent craftsmanship. People should not use this example as a reason to go out and spend thousands of dollars on their piano.

I would not consider regulating a few notes adequate to determine how well an action's parts work, by the way.

I suppose BDB, if your experience is limited, you would have to examine things excessively at times.

There are always several considerations when contemplating any work and drastic over simplifications serve no one.

Some posters with numbers at the end of their name have considerable education and experience. I am often surprised and intrigued. I value their opinion.

Well, chances are that one of those with numbers was not born when I started piano work, and the other never claims to have worked in the field.

But in any case, you sound like the one who only has a hammer, a very expensive one at that.

I suppose you would have to be one of my clients to actually know that.

I see quite a bit of successful work being done by many technicians.

Debating an academic point serves only as far to not lose the relevant solution.

Your academic point was well served until it was placed over every other point and at that, point, it lost relevance.

Many of the posters here employ a very broad range of solutions in achieving the proper result.

Yours seems continually narrow. I would argue, your clients are not well served as a result.

So, we digress ....

And "Who" is served ??

It seems to me there is a basic assumption being made here that may not be warranted. That is not an assumption I would make sitting down for the first time at a client’s piano. Surely no profession and competent piano technician would make this mistake. Yet it seems to be the assumption here that actions in the pianos under discussion were not reasonably well regulated and evaluated before these modifications took place.

I’ve encountered too many actions that came from some factory with impossible geometry to accept this notion. I found one Steinway action with nine leads in the lower bass keys. To be sure, the key downweight was a “proper” 52 grams (or thereabout) but the action was, for all practical purposes, unplayable. Yet the “regulation” was good according to the specifications of the time. At least as good as it could be without significant modification.

I’ve found Baldwin pianos fitted with actions that no amount of “regulating” was going to make playable. Some of those Pratt-Win actions were seriously screwed up. It can be impossible to set repetition lever spring tension “correctly” without an excessive amount of friction on the repetition lever center. These actions can also have significant geometry problems that leave the touch and feel wanting no matter how precisely the regulation is done. That old action-making machinery was anything but precise and consistent.

In principle I agree that bringing an action into the best regulation possible is a good first step if the action is actually not already well regulated. But, really, how long does it take to look at the basic parameters of an action and determine this? Once we’ve determined that the keys are reasonably level, key travel is appropriate for the action, hammer blow distance is reasonable, letoff is good, drop is acceptable, checking is in the ballpark, etc., and we find the performance of the action to still be unacceptable it’s time to move on and consider the now readily available alternatives.

As well, if two or three other competent technicians have already spent their good time and the client’s good money making sure the action is “properly” regulated and the client is still dissatisfied with the results, why should I insist on doing the same work yet again knowing with reasonable certainty that the performance results will be the same?

Why, then, should we not offer a client a workable solution to his/her problem just because some might consider it too expensive? It is not my job to determine this; it is my job to understand the technical issues involved, to know about and understand all of the available solutions and to present them in a coherent manner so the client can make a reasoned and rational choice. Seems to me that even if my only tool is an expensive hammer that’s a whole lot better than having no tool at all. But in this case we now have a variety of very good tools available to us. It would be a disservice to our clients to not at least understand them ourselves and be able to offer them when appropriate.

ddf

I'm 25, BDB. So, what? How old do I have to be to have a valid opinion?

As a pianist, I've spent most of my life playing on dissatisfying pianos from old spinets all the way to certain high end American and European makes that were brand new. I'm not interested in doing things the way they've been done for the past 100 years just for the sake of it.

Sometimes, I am pleasantly surprised by certain pianos, like the charming (brand new) Steinway B I played yesterday. However, my general philosophy is that piano design should be pushed to the limit for the sake of music making. As we have seen (The Phoenix System, Stuart & Sons, WNG, Stanwood TD, etc.), this gets expensive, but that isn't a bad thing, and there is nothing wrong with aspiring to do this kind of work.

I am well aware that not everyone wants, needs, or can afford such instruments, and I assure you that I have the skills to refurbish original parts if the situation calls for it. But as Del said, sometimes, the action is just not salvageable; if there are five million leads in the keys, as was the case in my piano, no amount of regulation is going to make the piano better.




ke the one who only has a hammer, a very expensive one at that. [/quote]

I just recently serviced a Petrof with a Detoa action. I didn't need to regulate it to know that it could not work like the client wanted as it was. Essentially, i had to change the design of the piano, and if the budget would have allowed, replaced the action parts too. For instance, after re-pinning the shanks to proper friction, they were too loose the next day. This was a problem with the bushing cloth, and it had to be changed. Many other things too, but the action came out great with real pianissimo control and strong fortes. Regulating it before hand would be a waste of time.

Take care,

Steve

Opinions are always valid. Whether they are worth being taken seriously by anyone else depends on the opinion, not on the age of the person who has it. Some people's never are.

Presumably the client tried the piano before buying it, did not like it, and bought it anyway, then. Then somehow you knew what the client wanted.

You are in the wrong business. You could be the world's greatest psychologist!

Is there a full moon, or did some folks get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning (and the day before and the day before)? Of course, I think I may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday myself.

There is a time and a place for point and counter point and more point and counter-point, but I’m not so sure things are going in a positive direction here…

It’d be nice if we could just move on before the point/counter point takes a turn for the worse (more so than it already has).

Rick

Thank You Rick,

This Baldwin we began the thread on will be here in my shop for another week or so.

Anyone curious to play it and form their own opinion is welcome to contact us to play and inspect it.