hammermaker's corner 3.

[isaacah]

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Ari Isaac.

Hammermaker's corner3.



Boyceville NY is a lovely small town, or is it a village, in the =
Catskill Mountains. Lots of woods, fresh air and quiet, you hardly know =
you've passed through, that's how small it is.

Everyone was at lunch by the time we arrived, Dave and I, at Ronson that =
day. Marty Negron suggested we go for lunch and look at the plant after. =
He told us where we could find a nice place for lunch and we found it =
easily.

Chicken soup with Matzaballs high up on the everyday menu? I was a bit =
surprised. I asked the owner, who was also the waitress about it. She =
said she'd worked with a Jewish woman somewhere who'd taught her how to =
make chicken soup. I ordered a bowl and when I tasted it I realized at =
once that this was not the kind of ordinary chicken soup to soothe the =
sniffles, no. This was the kind of chicken soup that restored your sense =
of self. The kind that made you know for certain that this world is the =
best place to be living in. The very kind of chicken soup God revealed =
to king Solomon, the wisest of men who had a thousand wives, one night =
at the beginning of king Solomon's reign, along with many other wisdoms =
and secrets and God warned Solomon to reveal the recipe to no more than =
one hundred and thirty five of his 1000 wives on pain of loosing his =
wisdom. Solomon was not in the habit of taking too much notice of what =
God instructed. After all, when you're the wisest of men what God says =
to do or not loses some of its importance. He knew, though, in his gut, =
that this time God was not kidding and he made sure to reveal the recipe =
to no more than 135, or was it 137. After making love, that week, to 132 =
of the 547 wives currently resident in the harem, just at the moment he =
was about to initiate foreplay with the 133d, a country girl whose taste =
in these matters he wasn't sure of, king Solomon had a momentary lapse =
of memory so he ended up revealing the secret of the chicken soup to two =
more wives than God had allowed. What is certain is that those two wives =
disappeared from this world very soon after and were condemned to be the =
progenitors of semi intelligent life on a another planet in a far off =
galaxy.

When we came back to Ronson Marty Negron showed me the entire process =
and helped me to my first significant realization about hammer making.

He showed me the cutting of the felt sheet into strips and the next step =
was the pre-pressing of the strips. They were put into a press, dry, no =
glue and pressed into the cawl, or the former of the strike point to =
shoulder radius of the hammer by a steel ruler as long as the strip of =
felt. The strip was left in that press for a few minutes and then taken =
out.=20

Something didn't make sense to me at that moment. I had been taught, =
like everyone else in the piano business, that hammer felt had to have =
resilience. If so, why pre-press it. After the pre-pressing, when I =
looked at the strip from its bass or treble end, it was no longer flat =
but had been forced into the shape of a letter V. It appeared to me (and =
it still does) that whatever resilience there had been in that felt =
before - it, or most of it, was gone now. What is certain is that the =
press used to, actually, glue up the hammers, can be considerably weaker =
once the felt strips are pre-pressed. That energy, the very one not =
needed now to finally press the hammers is taken away from producing =
tone - that became obvious to me that day at Ronson.

I resolved right there and then never to pre-press any felt I was going =
to use and to have my felt made with the absolute maximum resilience, =
spring, possible to build in.

Thinking about the pre-pressing it became obvious to me that, thinking =
backwards, pre-pressing to those hammer makers who used this way, made =
sense only if it was effective in getting the felt strip to accept and =
retain the letter V shape forced onto it by the steel ruler pushing the =
felt into the cawl. If the felt those hammer makers ordered was too =
springy to retain the V shape pre-pressing would be ineffective, ergo. =
pre-pressing meant, and means today since, I believe Steinways, Renner =
and a few others continue to pre-press, ordering felt sheets with less =
spring. No more than acceptable for the strip to retain the letter V =
shape.=20

The presses used to glue up the hammers were very hot, I estimated they =
were heated to 180-200F. The hammers, at that time, were left in the =
press for 20 minutes. I touched the felt it seemed to me, at that time, =
that the density of their strips was fairly uniform from bass to treble, =
something didn't quite come together in my head. That something became =
the conviction, embodied in the felt I use to make Isaac hammers, that =
the hammer-string impact has to match the taughtness of the strings =
being struck. In the bass, where the strings aren't very taught, the =
hammer needs to, as it were, chase the vibrating string and keep pushing =
energy into it so it must be a bit less dense. As the strings become =
more taught towards the treble the same, relatively softer hammer will =
simply damp the tone completely unless, that is, the felt is denser and =
the hammer is harder. Not harder as in inflexible but like a gradually =
stiffer spring is harder than a softer spring.

The next big step, for me, was now the building of a hammer press and =
both felt and hammer cutting equipment.=20


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