The only time I've ever noticed the voicing of hammer shanks has been when it has been uneven. A well scraped shank set will have a shank tone that doesn't stand out, is lost within the tone of the instrument.

You use very muddled terms to describe this kind of thing, Isaac, so it's difficult to understand quite what you mean. My perception is that the shanks contribute two elements to the sound - one is the broadband, unpitched noise of the impact that is just a part of the sound of many other components of the action together at fractionally different times (ie keybed noise etc). The other is the pitched, resonant element to the wood's sound.

Is it the pitched element that you are talking about when you talk about scraping the shanks?

If it is, then ideally you would want the tone frequency of each shank to correspond to the note being played. Is this something you have seen done, or done yourself?

Most of what has been said about sorting and scraping shanks seems to be about dividing them into categories - keep/reject, and then bass/treble.

It seems to me that any tuning of the resonant tone of the shanks is done not to bring out a particular tone, but to mask it as much as possible, and to create as even a contribution as is possible from the wooden components of the action.

I'm not so sure that this tone contribution is desirable, as it seems to me that it will inevitably be uneven, even with careful scraping. Much more uneven than, for example, a duplex scale. And those can be very uneven, even on top class instruments!

Phil, I am sorry for my poor terminology.

the pitch of shanks relate to their level of flexibility for the most part. a stiffer shank will be higher pitched. what we do when scraping is just to avoid a nhigher note to tone lower than its neighbor.

This is to be done on selected shanks where we can have 3 classes of shanks used in bass mediums and treble, plus a thinner selection for the high treble.

often a dull note can be made more sparkly by scraping the shank.

For the evening of tone I just noticed how it was heard with a before and after listening. could not analyse that really farther. the last 2 sections where concerned, but check on any high grade grand by knocking on the tails or having the shank knocking on a scraper blade , and you will notice it have been done.

possibly the impact noise is adressed then, as it relates to the hammer to string contact time, to me.

Best regards

It would not be a good idea to try to "voice" the WNG shanks by scraping them. The structure of a carbon tube does not allow for this. All you would do is damage the shank.

To the question concerning upright actions. We have a working prototype of an upright action. Currently, much as we did on the grand actions, we are working through making them work in the Mason & Hamlin Model 50.

While the basic structure of the action is working well in our tests, there are a number of small changes we have identified that we need to implement. Things such as changes in spring rates and the like. In other words, we are in the later stages of product development.

Also, we can't sell these actions until we have worked out the processes required so we can teach customers how to install the WNG upright action in a piano.

We are anticipating that something like mid year 2013 we should be in the market with our WNG composite upright actions.

I do have the WNG shanks installed for a year already on my instrument and it is a joy to play, very smooth action, very reliable, predictable and touch remains the same regardless of weather changes. I used to run the hair dryer over the shanks' flanges during the wet season when I was using wooden shanks, no more such activity.

I love to try WNG's wippen sometime in the future on my piano