Thank you everyone who left a suggestion. We appreciate your advice. My father follows the comments closely. Evan Roberts

Good luck with that Bechstein! That firm's older pianos are so special, it would be a pity for it to be anything but in prime shape.

The heavy touch being caused by extra leverage, the hammer blow is faster and needs less weight for the same force and energy of impact. Therefore, best way of lowering touch weight given the situation is to make the hammers lighter, being the fastest moving part. Drilling one or more holes in the tail would be possible keeping the shape, otherwise changing the hammers for lighter ones. It will feel much better, because unlike adding weight to the keys, you lower the overall moment of inertia too. I really like your video's btw honest perfection, in addition to a true lack of shyness sharing experience in a trade like this is very scarce!

From the amount of parts that were completely changed instead of refurbished I'd guess the new hammers and the other new moving parts are to heavy. I remember during an internship I did at the Steinway Center in Munich they had to restore a very old Bechstein Grand action. The technician i was working with told me that they would send the hammers to a manufacturer to put new felts on them to keep the original balance. He said that the wood that was originally used by Bechstein around 1900 is much lighter than the wood used for piano actions today. Simply replacing the hammers would probably mess up the keyboard weighting. So normally the goal in restoring an old grand piano action (at least that is what I was told) is to keep and refurbish as many parts as you can to keep the original touch. Hope this helps, love your videos!

Hello! Nice instrument!!! I carefully watched the video, and I noticed that the whippens installed are "modern type" Renner whippens, with a 3-4mm rise between the whippen flange center pin and the jack center pin. The other action seems to have flat whippens, older type; center pins are aligned, what makes a big difference concerning the angle with the repetition lever. Perhaps could you test 1 or 2 "flat" whippens with suspension springs; it would preserve the action and avoid to modify the key leads... If you have the Stanwood (Touchweight Design) weight curves, it can be very useful too, so as to identify what kind of "hammer weight / strike weight" would fit this very instrument; the hammers installed seem to be quite heavy, and the wooden cores should be asymetric (usually, the hammers for these Bechstein are thinner in the high treble area, so as to avoid hitting the frame). I also use the Fandrich-Rhodes method; it can be very useful! Feel free to contact me, it would be a great honour to help you if I can.

There was a similar problem in the action of my 1886 Steinway, which has been bastardized over the decades, so very few original things left. Apart form the obvious friction elements such as keyboard bushings, it's mainly incompatible geometry between older and newer parts in the action. First thing that was done is to look for new capstans that would fit a modern whippen by Renner. The older capstans were way larger and did not match well with the new whippens. My piano builder found a set of capstans with significantly lower surface area that would reduce the friction upon striking the key. The rockers in early whippens were curved and had less capstan contact upon striking a key. This must be balanced out. As others mentioned, the hammers are probably too heavy. 1 gram of hammer weight translated to 5 grams in down weight. Lots of factor coming into play and lots of possible solutions: * Shave off wood from the hammer shanks * Find new hammerheads with a lighter wood in their cores * Shave off wood from both sides of the hammer, reducing its width You may want to contact Bechstein about this, because the now produce their own hammerheads and are actually selling those to piano restorers. HTH.

You could try the Bosendorfer method of securing the hammer flanges with some 80 grit which would alter the touch weight to slightly lighter, hope that helps.

Hello, I inherited a C3 which was over 100 grams some 110g touch weight, and had to move the capstans nearer the keys by 10mm AND remove a front weight from all keys to get tw back to 50 odd g…

Hello from Brazil ! The action spread should be checked. The distance between the capstan and the jack centre looks different when you compare the black Bechstein with the one in question. Could the hammers be too heavy ? Are the roller positions different in the new shanks ? Could the lever flanges receive springs as in older Steinways ? I hope this helps. Best regards from Nicholas, ex LCF 1993 student

I would see that the action ratio measures correctly (which is the amount of hammer rise for 1mm of key travel.) 5:1 is a desirable standard. This will determine whether the repetitions/levers will be able to be kept, or are within the limits of modification. If the levers must be replaced, the capstans may need to be moved as well, as the heels on these incorrect levers may have been in the wrong place.

I just restore A Bechstein IV. Probably also the hammers are to heavy. The original hammers have the size 78mm in the base and 72 treble. the end of the hammers is slim ( I hope you know what i mean, don`t know the word in English). I can measure some original dimensions of the action, if you have a specific question..

Perhaps the leads at the front of the keys have beeen removed (no counterweighting). I had this done on a Steinway to speed up the return, and thus improve the repetition speed.

Hola Roberts. No creo que la báscula steinway sea mucho más pesada que la bechstein, ni que ese sea el problema. Creo que verificaría la magic line. Para ello movería la barra de las básculas hacia atrás, y si no fuera suficiente, correría la línea de capstain unos mm hacia adelante, recolocando los pie de básculas si fuera necesario. Saludos

First, I'd make sure that the action standard screws were not stripped and that the rail screws were tight; second, if it isn't the damper half blow rise then I'd start from scratch.

Is the hammer blow distance too much? Looks more than 47 to 45mm and the hammer shanks should not rest on the rail.

i once had a bösendorfer with new levers, it was 15 gramms heavier then an identical one...

I think Kurt Wiseman has a good posting on heavy action correction by changing slightly the geometry of the action. I expect that you know that, but I mention it anyway...

hammers do not look like they have been tapered - that can reduce weight quite a bit