I'm not sure anyone has advocated any <<one hammer suits all>> philosophy here. Certainly that was not what I intended to convey. Rather, that in the hands of a competent and well versed voicer a decent set of hammers will yield a beautiful tone for any decent piano. I think there is plenty to be said for a technician becoming familiar with how a certain manufactures hammers typically work through. I've never seen a good instrument that Renner Wurzen II's could not easily be utilized. I'm quite sure that applies to good quality Ables as well... and Bacon fat for that matter... whatever you know how to work with as it were. And to be sure, it is a wise idea to forever expand on ones bag of voicing tricks... so trying out different kinds of quality hammers is always a good idea. Cheers RicB ---------- It depends on the piano and what the customer wants. I've changed many sets of Abel and Renner hammers off older Steinways where no amount of needling was going to achieve the tone that the customer wanted and put on Bacon Felt hammers that were darn near perfect after some shaping and polishing. So my conclusion and experience is considerably different than yours and I encourage people to sample different types of hammers and see for themselves. I think they'll find that the one hammer suits all is what's "overdriven" here. David Love davidlovepianos at comcast.net www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Richard Brekne Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 12:07 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] Abel aelect Vs. Rosner-Wurtzen Hi I think really that your post goes to show that just about any reasonbly made hammer can work quite well in just about any piano. I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that very much of the to do about differerent hammer types is quite overdriven. To be sure, a hammer can be made so as to be impossible, or nearly so, to work up any real elasticity... and you do have the real qualitative difference between hammers meant to be needled and those meant for addition of lacquer. But that said if you have a decently made set in front of you, you can get them to work. Some may require a bit more work then others... some not. With regard to hammers meant to be needled.... I'd also like to point out that it increasingly seems to me that there is no such thing as the hammer that just sounds good from the get go... and we can leave them as is. Recent experiences showed me quite clearly that even moderately soft hammers benefit greatly (with regards to increased elasticity and dynamic range) if needled to release lower and mid shoulder tensions even if this requires a good soaking of very thin solids lacquer afterwards. Indeed, this has become really a third road for me, and a surprising one at that. Cheers RicB
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