Hammers (long)

[Delwin D Fandrich]

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John Hartman wrote:

> Dear list,
>
> Any time I here that we should want our hammers to be resilient I become
> perplexed. Resilience is the property of an object to return to it's
> former shape after it has been deformed by a force. If we really want our
> piano hammers to be resilient we shouldn't make then out of felt. Felt is
> pretty far down on the list of resilient materials. Some have said that
> adding hardeners or compressing the felt with heat will make them less
> resilient.  In fact they become more resilient. Another thing that
> bothers me is the demonstration of cutting the hammer from the crown to
> the molding and seeing how far the felt returns to it's pre-pressed
> shape. This resiliency demonstrated by this is of no consequence. What
> matters is how the hammer behaves in contact with the strings.
>
> A well formed piano hammer will display differing elastic properties
> depending on how forcefully it impacts the strings. Soft playing requires
> low resilience. Loud playing requires high resilience. The entire process
> of bending the felt around the hammer molding is designed to make a
> hammer with a gradient of density from crown to molding. While it is true
> that this process increases the overall resiliency of the hammer,
> creating the gradient, I believe, is more important.
>
> I see nothing wrong or evil in using hardeners such as lacquer on hammers
> (I prefer the term stiffening agents). I realize this is a very unpopular
> view especially considering all the negative reports both on this list
> and at many PTG conventions classes. I feel that many of these opinions
> stem from a lack of information on how to lacquer hammer from the raw
> state. While there has been a lot of good information on how to top
> lacquer hammer provided by the Steinway company these techniques will not
> work to full advantage on a new set of cold-pressed hammers. What is
> needed is an understanding of deep foundation voicing with stiffening
> agents.
>
> Another reason that hammer lacquering has been condemned is the abuse of
> the technique in the futile attempt to revive a piano with a dead or
> dying soundboard. This approach will result in an ever louder attack at
> the beginning of the note with less tone to follow. Considering that many
> larger rebuilding shops make soundboards will little or no crown many of
> us have experienced the frustration of trying to achieve a round tone
> with enough power in the lower treble and upper tenor areas. No amount of
> stiffing agent will restore the tone. I believe the present popularity of
> heavier hot-pressed hammers is that they work better at correcting the
> above soundboard problems. Heavier hammers will dwell on the string
> longer. This will shift the energy to lower partials. Lower partials tend
> to fill out the tone after the attack.
>
> I use medium to med. light weight cold-pressed hammers with stiffening
> agents.  My technique yields very consistent results and it is quite
> fast. I spend almost no time needling the hammers or cutting back the top
> layers of felt to get to a harder layer. The stiffening agent do most of
> the work. Another benefit is the long term stability of the voicing. I
> have come back years later and the hammers only need minor needling,
> mostly on the strike point.
>
> John Hartman RPT

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Let's see now. "Resilience is the property of an object to return to its former shape after it has been deformed by a force."

And elasticity is what?
"Elasticity (î-là-stîs´î-tê, ê´là-) noun. 1. The condition or property of being elastic; flexibility. 2. Physics. a. The
property of returning to an initial form or state following deformation. b. The degree to which this property is exhibited."

(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation. All rights reserved.)

Do we all understand the distinction now? Good, I'm glad we have that all straightened out now.

Perhaps we should consider the hammer to be a variable rate spring with a high amount of internal friction built into it.

Semantics aside, I agree with John. There is nothing inherently evil in using hardeners (or "stiffeners" as John prefers to
call them), though I would add "in moderation." The difficulty is that excessively dense and/or massive hammers are being
used in an attempt to cover up for soundboards that are old and have outlived their usefulness, for inadequate soundboard
design, and for the improper construction and assembly of good soundboard designs. Dense and massive hammers cannot
compensate for bad soundboards, whether they are bad from age or from improper installation. And it matters not if that
installation is a new board in an old rim or a new board in a new rim.

-- ddf



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