Learning Curve...

There have been a few setbacks lately. That is, of course, how you learn. Seems no matter how much you read, watch videos, seek out advice, etc. there's always something else you should have known that would have made all the difference in outcome -- had you known it at the time. I suppose that's what experience is all about; learning the hard way.

I reported on the epoxy setback with Yuri a few posts ago. Today my master carpenter friend Frank was at church and asked about progress, expecting a glowing report. When I told him about being sold the "foolproof" West epoxy system, his face fell. "The bums, they should have never sold you that! Of course, it didn't work. It has the wrong viscosity." Yep, that's what I learned the hard way. Frank is now on a personal mission to find a new source for the correct brand of epoxy -- one that holds its shape while you're working with it. Hopefully, there will be a happier report on Yuri's termite ridden keyframe in the not-too-distant future.

But back to Zelda. Each sharp got relacquered this past week. Each natural ivory keytop was taken out and polished with rottenstone (a diatomaceous limestone found originally near Tripoli) to a mellow creamy glow. The touch after polishing out, by the way, is spectacular. While I'd never want to see another elephant or walrus sacrificified just so pianos could have ivory keys, I now understand why it was the material of choice for piano makers at the turn of the century. I've never owned or played a piano before with real ivory keys. There's something about how the bone seats with skin that makes the touch of the piano more secure, more perfect. It's almost as if your fingers have an organic communication though the keys with the rest of the instrument.

At any rate, the touch is so perfect now that the keys have been cleaned I've decided to keep all the existing ivories, even with some of their imperfections. On the one hand, it's a compromise from the aspect of appearance; on the other to change them would reduce, I believe, the quality of how the instrument plays in the long run. So I carefully reglued those that were coming off and filed down a few dog-toothed gaps to prevent future mishaps. It isn't a perfect set of keys; but I think they're probably superior to any modern alternative I could use.

When I replaced all the keys in the keyframe Thursday night, there was another one of those "that wasn't in the book" minor setbacks. They looked great; but once the keyframe was back in Zelda's keybed they were consistently a quarter inch too high. Ack! My moment of glory turned into a huge "what did I do wrong this time" question mark.

I think I know. The action had settled lower into the moth-eaten felt. I replaced the backcheck felt as well as the balance rail felts which were also pretty worn looking. I'd carefully counted each paper punching below the felts and replaced them with the same number of punchings that were there previously, forgetting that over a hundred years those felts and punchings were well compressed. So effectively, by raising the backcheck felt and putting in all new (as you can see in the bottom picture) balance rail pin punchings and felts, I raised the keys too high.

My next step is to take the keyframe all apart again and reduce the number of punchings for each key in the balance rail. As a test I'd tried this out on three keys Thursday before I put everything away. It worked. So, it's just going to take a lot of patience and time.

Assuming I get the keys back to where they need to be, the next step is going to be setting the "key dip", i.e. the amount of travel each key has so they're all consistent. Then comes resetting the hammer height and blow distance to accommodate for all the changes I've made. It's something of a "give a little, take a little" process. Each adjustment you make to one part of the action affects how another part operates.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day so I'll have all day to work through correcting my mistake and moving on to the next steps. Tonight I'm just going to read and hopefully learn a bit more and start organizing all the tools and parts. Hopefully, with a good night's sleep, a bit more knowledge and some better organization my learning curve won't be so steep tomorrow.