hammer felt repair

[Greg Newell]

Tom,
         I've seen this type of "repair" with leather but never with felt. 
Seems like you would cut right through the felt with the string, no?
The reason this is not commonly done is that the normal hammer felt is 
glued on under tremendous pressure. This is not possible to reproduce on 
individual hammers in the field. That having been said (so to speak) the 
leather repair did work somewhat. Kind of a down and dirty repair for not 
so great pianos if you know what I mean.

Greg Newell



At 10:12 PM 7/5/2002, you wrote:
>Just tuned an Estey over 110 years old.  I also had to repair a broken hammer
>shank on G7.  The hammer looked like someone had laid an extra layer of felt
>over the top.  The raised layer was about 1/8" thick and extended from 9
>o'clock to 3 o'clock.  In fact all the hammers in the top octave were the
>same.  This was NOT a steam job, although that was my first thought, because
>steam voicing will raise the felt up, but this was perfectly even.  Even in
>height (steam always looks a little bumpy) and perfectly even at the ends of
>the layer, which was a perfectly straight line.
>
>Could this have been a repair job on hammers which had worn through to the
>wood?  I've never heard of such a thing but then that doesn't mean alot.
>
>If this type of repair doesn't exist, why not?  I could envision a strip of
>felt which would fit over the top of the hammer and be glued in place.  Maybe
>it wouldn't be hard enough, or have enough tension but would it be better
>than wood?
>
>Just wondering,
>Tom Sivak

Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net