Feeling the Hammers

[Richard Brekne]

Hi folks.

I got to thinking about this position that the hammer cannot
be felt at impact because there is no coupling between the
hammer and key at impact. Actually you see... this isnt
really the case. There is a direct line between the hammer,
hammershank flange, dropscrew, top whippenlever to capstan
which couples pretty darn directly the whole way. In
addition there is a slight connection through the
jacktail/letoff button...tho admitedly this second seems
pretty insignificant on the surface of things..

Anyways I decided to throw a little cheapo accelerometer on
the whippen of my grand action model to see if I could find
out anything and low and behold.... lifting the hammer up so
the knuckle is well off the lever, then taping on the hammer
with a hammer shank showed a clear signal with the
repetition lever in contact with the drop screw. But when I
put a peice of felt under the rep lever height regulating
button to force a gap between the drop screw and repetition
lever I couldnt be sure of a signal. 

Ok.. this is a cheapo makeshift experiment and I want to do
this with some better equipment, yet still it pointed pretty
clearly in the direction that hammer impact information is
delivered directly to the key.

Comments ?

RicB