Been using an impact hammer on verticals almost exclusively for about 20 years now & have no intention of going back to the conventional hammer. The times I have reverted to a conventional hammer for the odd vertical have been few & far between -- generally a piano with extremely tight & jumpy pins. Right now, a judo injury to my wrist (at my age I should know better!) has made tuning of any kind a bit of a problem, but especially verticals with the impact/twisting motion. I need to take some time off to let it heal, I guess, but other than that, the impact hammer does just fine. When I was working on the adjustable impact with Schaff, I worked on a grand wrench as well, but was never able to find a design that overcame the weight/leverage issue, especially if one sits while tuning. It was just too much stress on the shoulder to move from pin to pin. I always use the stubby extension hammer I developed for Schaff on grands anyway. If you want padding on the handle which makes it easier on the hand, just put a golf club grip on it, or use some padded bike handlebar tape ---easy to install, & will save you a couple hundred bucks over the padded one you're considering, Dave. The padding does make it more comfortable to use. Otto ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Olson" <jlolson@cal.net> To: "College and University Technicians" <caut@ptg.org> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 2:06 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] Re: Impact Tuning > I was puzzled not to see more of a universal recommendation of impact > wrenches here (for uprights). I must be even more out of the loop than I'd > imagined, because I've assumed for years that impact hammers had handily won > over the market for upright piano tuning. > > After a few weeks of using an impact wrench (generic Schaff design), I found > a conventional wrench to be comparatively cumbersome, slow, and inaccurate > for *most* upright pianos and tuning situations (large pitch raises and > extremely tight pins are better served by conventional tuning wrenches, no > doubt). > > Again, I'm very surprised that impact hammers aren't universally preferred > by those who actually use them regularly (given the sampling of opinion here > is representative). > > I liked the impact action so much, I even built an impact wrench for grand > pianos, but I was never able to achieve a design that worked well for a > variety of pin tightnesses in the horizontal position. > > Best, > > JeffO > > > _______________________________________________ > caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives >
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