Conical rosettes

They are more stable. Try it to believe it. Be careful to obviously maintain the same depth. The ones at the tail are wider. Some key levers in the tail are longer and therefore the impact is greater and the greater the push towards crushing.

Thanks to Pianoexpert for the answer.

I'll take this opportunity to make a further request:

1) to replace the rosettes, do you have to remove the action, is it a very complicated operation?

2) I noticed that near the action there are some washers with a side cut: what are they used for?

thanks.

Conical rosettes are very stable, it's true. They are so dense that, in practice, it is like putting a piece of wood under the key, creating no small problems in the discharge of force, particularly, naturally, in more sustained dynamics.

It is intuitive that the force applied, instead of flowing onto the rosette, returns back to the hands, creating sensations that are anything but pleasant or useful. Anyone who has a Steinway at home in factory condition knows what I am referring to...

Don't be fooled by the advertisements of dealers... If it were up to them, they would make you change half a piano every time.

I prefer the green ones because, not being so hard, the bottom-of-the-key impact is less elastic. What happens at the bottom of the key after the sound significantly influences the sensation felt on the keyboard....is there anyone who uses that type of rosette from the factory?

The usual suspects (S&S, Bosendorfer, Yamaha...) it seems to me they don't want anything to do with conical rosettes... but maybe it's just my impression.

There would also be the issue of that unusually abundant width of theirs which ensures that on a grand piano, particularly if it is a Steinway, when you go to depress a diatonic note, the wood even touches the rosette of the adjacent sharp...

Steinway used to place hard white felt rosettes on the key center, while using green buckram ones on the front toe soles....

They are choices.... Those [the felt ones] allow for a greater sensation of depth when playing fortissimo by sinking into the keyboard, unlike the conical ones because they do not compress....

Dynamics are lost on the fortissimo... The force returns to the hands instead of going to the hammer and the piano feels all these things...

The width issue is an elementary problem; if the white keys are too wide, they can interfere with the escapement on the black keys. If the spacing between blacks and whites is correct, it shouldn't happen... In any case, by rule, the diameter must be such that it does not interfere with the other keys

In reality, the problem is a bit more complex, but (ratio brevis) the rosettes in question for the coda are all the same, having the same width between sharps and diatonic notes. On the coda, being wider than they should be, besides fitting with difficulty (it's clear) into the notch intended for this function under the key, the wood of the diatonic note tends (to put it mildly) to touch the sharp's rosette, because the relative notch (there are two on the diatonic notes) is not wide enough to avoid the problem. The width of those green ones (which are smaller) makes sense; they are not made at random.

I have never tried them, I have only touched them by hand and they feel like plaster, but if they are wider than the notches under the key, it is a problem.

Have you tried these rosettes?

Yes, one of many youthful mistakes...

I have met several people who, after shelling out 300 cards to have them installed, were desperate because they no longer had the touch of their piano... it was enough to restore the much-hated green rosettes to restore the situation...

Ah, but I was the one who told you this story!

There is a very well-known technician who visited a friend of mine some time ago. This technician put those exact rosettes on his Steinway upright.

Already, the Steinway upright isn't the best of uprights, and then with those rosettes, even his teacher found it worsened....

The intervention cost 300 euros! (And he did nothing else).

It's a widespread issue... I happened to see a well-known technician who, after setting them, was asking himself, feverishly and covered in a liter of sweat, why the action no longer had an escapement, despite everything having been regulated and it working wonderfully before...

I remember that, incredulous, he began to push down on the key with all the strength he had in his body.

If he was sweating that much, it means he was also a big man! But even by pressing the key with eighty kilos of weight, wouldn't it have escaped anyway? ahahah.

I fear that if he had been alone, he would have stood on top of the key, on tiptoe, like a classical ballerina...

To work well, the keybed must be removed. One can also remove only the key rail and gently lift the keys, reaching the pins with parallel long-nose pliers. I agree regarding the hardness. It depends on what depth result one wants to achieve. I agree on the return of energy to the hand. Obviously, one must also check for no "invasion" on those adjacent black key bushings. The "after-touch" must also be more precise and generous, because we won't find any "generous" elasticity. Trying with just a few keys, however, is a wise thing to do.

Hello, the discussion on conical felts is very interesting.

Instead, if I had to choose between classic green felts, based on what should I choose between hard, extra-hard, or softer ones?

I am asking you this because the technician (who redid the depth) replaced only those of the white keys with new felts (while leaving the old ones on the black keys)

a maneuver that leaves me rather perplexed

Thanks a million

good evening

It leaves me perplexed as well. The replacement implies a difference in sensation at maximum depth regardless. If there is a need to replace them... they all need replacing!!! Otherwise, it is better to leave the old ones, which are also already settled and compacted. They should only be replaced in case of felt deterioration, especially in the outer circumference part of the rosette.

it is what I imagined and, above all as he/she says, the sensation felt at full key dip is indeed different.

But which ones would be preferable, the hard ones, extra hard (or biting, if they exist)? are there technical issues, or is it just a matter of sensation and the pianist's personal taste regarding the bottom of the key?

thanks 1000

good day to everyone