John Delacour wrote; >. . . . The hammer I have had the most consistent and pleasing >results with is the Imategawa with the unshaped walnut moulding. >These I obtain without impregnation and do all the boring and >shaping myself. Very little toning is required and what is needed >is easy -- and more important I have never had a soft set. I detest >any use of dope. We used Imadegawa hammers during the early nineties exactly as JD describes. As John says, those with the walnut mouldings are excellent hammers. We only stopped using them only because the depth of hammer felt is a insufficient (typically C88 has a felt covering of just 3 mm). One the other hand, their standard line with hornbeam mouldings are just plain trash. You can 'dig the garden' all day with these hammers and they continue to sound the same - hard/bright and unyielding. While our experience with the walnut moulding Imadegawa with no impregnation was very favourable, we now use Abel. While some have complained about Abel on the list, they will make hammers to the hardness levels required by the end user. Following a couple of unsatisfactory hammer sets, I too had reservations about Abel prior to 1996. Norbert Abel told me, at a 1996 convention, that the biggest problem he faces as a hammer maker is knowing the individual requirements of the customer. We discussed this matter with regard to our own requirements, and to date we have had nothing but praise for the product we have used since. We used Abel hammer on our piano No. 003 at Reno. These hammers required very little voicing. Ron O. -- ______________________________ Website: http://www.overspianos.com.au Email: mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au ______________________________
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