Voicing New Hamburg Steinway Hammers

[Richard Brekne]

Stienway Hamburg uses the classic traditional tried and true age old 
we've been doing it this way for the last 800 years so dont even think 
about questioning it as God himself wrote this proceedure down in stone 
method of voicing hammers.

If you are good at needling new hammers out of the box you will do fine. 
In a nutshell tho... pre-needling.... you are to use a combination of 
needling and feeling the "spring" you create by pinching the shoulders 
with your fore finger and thumb. You are after a certain "feel" of 
springiness. Needled area will puff a bit... filed away later. Some guys 
use a kind of  wood sounding bar  to tap the hammer on... they are after 
a certain sound and bounce... but I havent seen this but on a couple of 
occasions and dont really know much about it.

Basic needling techniques involved here. 

David Love wrote:

> List:
> 
> I am installing a set of hammers on a Hamburg Steinway D (1972).  The 
> customer wants to maintain the same character as the original so I am 
> using a factory set of hammers.  Though I am very familiar with Renner 
> Blues, Abel, NY Steinway hammers, etc., I don't believe that I have 
> ever worked up a set of HS hammers out of the box.  My question has to 
> do with overall technique including the preneedling techniques.  My 
> research suggests that such heavy needling is required prior to 
> installation because the hammer is so hard that a caul is used to 
> support the hammer during this process.  I recall reading an article 
> in the journal a year or two back where a European concert tech 
> described starting his pre needling below the staple!!!  (Seemed a bit 
> excentric.) And by the time he was done, the hammer was so mishapen 
> that it required considerable reshaping.  I would appreciate any 
> comments or directions to any good literature on this particular hammer.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David Love
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-- 
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no