hammer brushing

[John M. Formsma]

Ron, David, and List:

Sorry to be late on this thread from a few days ago.  I tried this technique
on our 1919 Bechstein, which (I think) had had new hammers hung at some time
between its construction and when my family acquired it.

Anyway, used the brass brush, and also tried a small steel bristle brush. Do
you know if steel is acceptable to use on hammers, or should one stick with
the brass? I know brass is softer than steel, and will remove less. However,
on this piano, the hammers were quite grooved, and the steel took a bunch of
that out, whereas the brass did not do as much removal. (I don't think there
has been any hammer filing or voicing in the last 20 years, and it has been
played very regularly since my Mom is a piano teacher.)

After cleaning with the brass and steel brushes, the tone was very soft--too
soft. So I dry ironed the hammers using Roger Jolly's technique as written
in this month's PTJ (Good article!!). That brightened it up very nicely, and
the piano sounds loads better than before. The tone is more precise rather
than splattered.

Anyway, thought I'd ask the list's opinion. By the way, this was my first
attempt at this voicing stuff, and I wanted to get some direction if anyone
has an opinion? Opinions--on this list???? <grin>

If there are archives on this, I'd be glad to look for them. Under what
topic would they be classified?

Thanks.

John Formsma


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 1999 12:40 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: "I" Bridge



>I use a vegetable cleaning brush with bristles.  Does your
> voicing scrubber have bristles?
>
>David Ilvedson
>

Yep, brass. It cleans the crud out of the string cuts and raises the "nap"
of the felt enough to eliminate a lot of the high painful partials. Raises a
heck of a dust cloud in use, but it's about the cheapest magic I know, and
the best $.69 I ever spent. You can make over $200 an hour for about five
minutes brushing a set of hammers, and make $150 worth of difference in the
sound for a few bucks worth of your time. A real crowd pleaser. A suede
brush works very well too, but this old scrubber has a long handle so I
don't take knuckles off (mine) on the pressure bar screws in verticals. I
have no idea if they are still available, or what they cost by now.

 Ron