Steve, I almost posted this privately because I'm sure this has probably been hashed over many times on the list, but I know that not everyone on the list has years and years of experience doing the type of work Steve talks about. So if he's willing to do it, there would probably be quite a few of us on the list that could benefit by his answers to my questions. I've had to do "some" juicing but I've never been completely satisfied with the results so I would be very interested in knowing exactly how you approach doing this the way you describe below. What is the proportion of keytops to actone? Exactly where and how do you apply it? From the top? From the sides like Vince mentioned? How do you know when you're at that maximum point "before" you cross that line? Does much shaping have to be done on the new hammers? We have quite a few older L's here and if we end up using them in our new building as I suspect we will, I'm going to be doing a lot of hammer replacing in the next few years. If you have the time and would be willing to do it, any help/guidance you can give on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Avery >Some of the pianos sounded "thin, shallow and tinny" as you have well >described. As I discovered, these instruments' hammers had suffered from >heavy applications of lacquer. I worked hard to correct the situation, >deep needling for hours to break up the lacquer and filing to apply the >"Steinway shape" to what were some pretty round, funky looking hammers. >They responded to all this work and eventually a BIG, full, singing tone >would emerge. As this happened I came to appreciate that these hammers >do possess some wonderful characteristics. > >The Steinway hammers are indeed soft out of the box, and will sound >muffled and lacking in power until shaping and judicious hardening is done >to develop them. >One great advantage they have, though, is the thickness of felt from >strike point to the tip of the molding, especially throughout the >treble: often twice that of most other hammers. Properly developed, this >enables the piano to exhibit a great range of tone color, and a huge >dynamic range. Even on a fff blow, the hammer never collapses completely, >and the tone remains full, pure, and undistorted. And LOUD! On soft >playing, there is this beautiful, ethereal sound, sort of a warm halo >around each note. > >The downside to all this ecstasy is the amount of work required to bring >it >about. I have been installing these hammers steadily in older >Steinways the past two years, and it still takes me fifteen or twenty >hours of filing, hardening, needling, hardening, fitting, hardening, >needling and so on to wring the most I can from them. And so far, the >limit seems to be with my skills and abilities, not the hammers' >potential. > > I really despise the >sound of lacquer, and feel it generally has a stifling effect on piano >tone in direct proportion to the amount used. Excess lacquering, >especially in the shoulders, results in hammers that feel and sound like >rocks. It is often employed to excess, at the factory and more commonly >elsewhere, as an expedient to "bring up" the tone of these marvelous but >challenging hammers. I prefer, at this point in my education, to use >keytop-in-acetone solutions to harden the hammers; gently, conservatively, >up to the limit of the piano's power, while not crossing >the line over into harshness and distortion. This is lotsa work, but , to >borrow a phrase from an amplifier builder in a hi fi hobbyist magazine >"...yields results entirely unobtainable through lesser means." >Steve Schell _____________________________________ Avery Todd, RPT Moores School of Music University of Houston 713-743-3226 atodd@uh.edu _____________________________________
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