Before moving into the field of piano tuning and repair, I began playing piano for enjoyment and relied on a piano technician to maintain my Yamaha grand. When he recommended having the piano ‘regulated’, I said yes, trusting in his professional judgment. What a world of difference that made in the feel, or touch, of the piano. I didn’t know what he did but my enjoyment of playing greatly increased.
Having attended regulation classes in Montana, Arizona, Kansas, Germany and multiple conventions, I understand what regulation is (develop consistency of touch, power and repetition within the piano action) and, having felt that difference as a piano player first, I know how to create that “WOW’ sensation for you.
I truly enjoy regulating a piano action and that goes for upright pianos as well. I have invested hundreds of hours in my education and thousands of dollars in equipment to competently regulate your piano.
Upright piano regulation is done in the home whereas, after taking careful measurements, your grand action is brought to my shop for precision regulation.
Those measurements are transferred to my custom made Grandwork™ Regulation Station from TPR Tools in Massachusetts. I had the owner and developer, Chris Brown, spend a week with me providing personalized instruction on its use.
This regulation station allows me to duplicate the keybed and string height of your piano and make precision adjustments to the action. The action is disassembled, thoroughly cleaned and inspected for damage. Here is a common issue I find, some piano tuners to fix keys that have too much side to side motion will turn the oblong front rail pins. This causes the bushings to wear even more creating an undesirable groove in the bushings. The proper repair is to steam off the old bushings and put in new ones for a tight, factory fit. Hammers should be smooth and slightly pear shaped. Normal wear is for the hammers to become deeply grooved and flatten at the crown. Part of regulation is to shape the hammers by wearing away a thin outer layer of felt turning an old set of hammers into new. Many times the punchings under the keys have become worn and compressed causing the keys not to be level or have a ‘springiness’ at the bottom travel of the key and new punchings are needed. Sometimes the customer will ask for new keytops as part of regulation since the action will be in the shop and can offer that service. With the preliminary work of cleaning and repair completed, attention is turned to actual regulation of the action with some of the steps shown next starting with leveling the keys. This is setting the ‘Blow’ distance, how far the hammer is from the strings while at rest. If too far away, the pianist has to press a long distance before hitting the string. This is known as “Let off”, how close the ‘jack’ that is pushing the hammer, gets to the string before letting off and allow inertia move the hammer the rest of the way to the string. The setting is quite close to a 1/16 of an inch and is critical in having set properly to play softly. This is the whippen mechanism that contains the jack that pushes up the hammer. In this picture alone there are six adjustments for proper performance and there are 88 of these! With the action fully assembled, the ‘backcheck’ is adjusted so the hammer ‘catches’ after hitting the string and does not bounce back up, known as a double bounce.
Here are various examples of my education to perform precision regulation
‘Bedding’ the keyframe on a new Steingraeber piano during my internship at the piano factory in Bayreuth, Germany. Regulating an upright action model at the Intermediate & Advanced Training Seminar offered by Randy Potter at the Montana State University School of Music. Attending the week long ’37 Steps’ of regulating class at the Piano Technicians Guild home office in Kansas City, Kansas. The course was formerly known as The Yamaha Little Red Schoolhouse. Spending a week of advanced action rebuilding at the Renner Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona.
