After a little additional thought while bathing and washing the dogs, I reasoned that upright hammer weights should be in line with grand hammer weights. Why not? Similar stringing scale & soundboard designs, similar blow distance, similar key dip, hammer must be accelerated to similar speeds. So should not the hammer mass be similar to that of a grand? If so, then should I not be able to successfully utilize the Stanwood hammer mass charts for guidance??? What do others do? Simply duplicate? Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2001 9:32 AM Subject: Upright Hammer Weight > 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 >
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