Night And Day

[David Love]

I think that good hammers all share certain characteristics when producing
good tone.  I have put Steinway style hammers on Asian pianos with excellent
results when the tone was just unbearable to the owner.  I have yet to find
a piano that benefited from a very hard hammer that was left hard.  It is a
mistaken belief that a Yamaha needs a hard hammer to drive an unresponsive
board.  The boards may at times be unresponsive, but a hard unresilient
hammer doesn't help.

It seems to be mostly a matter of where you like to start from.  I prefer to
start with a softer hammer that is very resilient and build tone.  But I
don't mind starting with a hard hammer and building resilience when it is
called for.  I rehammered a Hamburg S&S D recently with Renner hammers (not
Renner Blues).  These hammers required a lot of needling in the shoulders to
get a resilient sound (and feel I might add), and some of the needling was
done prior to any shaping, boring, etc..  They also required additional
needling after some playing time had been put on them.  But they responded
very well and the sound was perfect for the instrument.  Though I am sure I
could have produced a good sound with a softer hammer building the tone, it
would have changed the character of the instrument.

There are differences in felt types however.  I find Abel felt to be not
nearly as responsive as good Renner Wurzen felt.  When the manufacturer
recommends the use of pliers as standard voicing procedure, it makes me
wonder.  I have installed Abel hammers on a couple of instruments as they
have been touted so highly by many people, but I must say that I won't
anymore.  I find it very difficult (though not impossible) to get the sound
to open up with an Abel hammer, more difficult yet to get it to stay open.
Putting Abel hammers on a NY Steinway I consider to be a mistake.  I realize
that anecdotal evidence is not proof, but of the three NYS that I work on
where Abel hammers were put on (not by me), I changed one back to NY
Steinway hammers at the pianists insistence after she played on the piano
for only two weeks, and the other two (owned by a single individual) are
waiting until he can afford to do so.

My choices for hammers are always Steinway on a NY Steinway and Renner on a
Hamburg Steinway.  They both take a bit of work, but are worth it. I also
use Ronsen hammers but prefer the Bacon felt to the Abel felt.  Both NY
Steinway and Ronsen require some lacquer (or substance of your choice) to
stiffen the felt, but I find this can be done without destroying the
resilience.  I like the sound of Isaac hammers as well, though I don't use
them.  If the piano calls for a "tensioned" hammer, I prefer Renner hammers,
blue or otherwise.  The Renner blue is much softer than other Renner hammers
and requires much less needling.  But all the Renner Wurzen felt hammers
respond to needling and will open up with good resilience and produce nice
tone that you can feel in your fingers (grin).

David Love



----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: July 01, 2002 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: Night And Day


It seems that I read sometimes this hammer is too hard, that hammer is too
soft, etc. Is it not the case that some hammers will work with some piano
types, and other hammers with other pianos? Such as, softer hammers might
work well on pianos with efficient soundboards, a firmer hammer, such as an
Abel, might work good on an older piano whose soundboard has lost some of
its efficiency, and maybe and rock hard hammer (asian) will work well with
an asian piano that maybe has a relatively inefficient soundboard design?

Isn't that a better way to look at the hammer question? I can't believe an
Abel is no good for any piano, and I can't imagine that an Isaac or a
Steinway hammer will work well on all pianos.

Or am I just all wet?

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: <ANRPiano@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 10:15 PM
Subject: Re: Night And Day


> I too have found the Abels way too hard.  I had a set on a 6' grand in my
> studio, 10 steamings later they still hurt your ears.  Put a set of
Isaac's
> on, a light acetone/keytop in the top three octaves and what a sound!  I
just
> went to visit this piano at the teacher's studio who bought it from me and
> everything is still fine.  My first set also went on a teacher's piano,
she
> has 70 students and after a year they still looked and sounded like new.
The
> sets I have used weigh off around the break between middle and high SW in
> Stanwood's chart.
>
> I have a couple sets of Abel hammers I think I would like to sell.
>
>
> Andrew Remillard
> ANRPiano.com
>