Upright Hammer Weight

[Farrell]

I'm doing my first complete rebuild (except for wippens which seem to be in
amazingly great shape) on an old upright. I'm installing new butts, shanks,
hammers, key bushings, key pins, keybed felt, and completely rebuilding the
damper system - all new felt, bushings, springs, etc. - good education here!
Finished traveling all the butts (not a 10-minute process!).

I'm just about ready to install hammers and I weighed a few. Old #59 = 4.3g,
New Abel #59 = 6.6g. Old #28 = 4.9g, New Abel #28 = 7.7g. The old weights
are far off the light end of the Standwood grand hammer weight curves. The
new Abel weights are on, but near the far light end of the Stanwood
spectrum. The new hammers are not tapered, etc.

I don't have a clue as to where to target weights (I realize the Stanwood
high, medium, and light zones may differ for an upright hammer) and how to
determine optimal target weight/weight zone. I realize I could just estimate
the amount of felt loss on the old hammers and try to duplicate what was
there (amount of tapering, etc.), but I would always want to at least
explore and be aware of where the optimal range is rather than just blindly
duplicating what may be a less than optimal original design. If I'm going to
duplicate, I want to do it from a standpoint of knowledge rather than
ignorance.

Thanks for any iput.

Terry Farrell