Isaac OLEG wrote: > John, > Thanks, I had a look at your site , I liked what I've seen. I have > seen some vertical hammers made by Ronsen in Paris (not in a piano) > and I was surprised by the nice resiliency this have. The shape is > surprisingly near of the old French pianos I know. > If the Dodge machine is used we can expect the tension to be fairly > nice in the process I guess. > > I Emailed Ronsen to ask if he could make some replications , for > instance I have a set with a few particular sizes as 14 mm on only the > few heads near the break. > I guess it is easy to do, but I hope also that the price will be > "normal". > > Thanks anyway, for these info, your articles (nice rule B.T.W !) and > your recent participation to the forum. > > Talking about felts and Hammers, Renner can provide not so hard > hammers lately (since 5 years approximatively) while they begin to use > only Vurzen Filz for their hammers. > This felt is much more mellow that what we where used to, and react > very nicely to needling. > The inside is yet a bit dense, but the tone is perfect for all German > pianos (Viennese or Hamburg) since 1930 I'd say. > We have to ask for medium or light pressing, of course their felting > machines don't give much tension originally that is the main problem I > guess. > > With the correct needling we can harden them or soften them, but still > for French piano they are too "massive" and modern tone giving I'd > say. > > With best regards > > Isaac OLEG > Isaac, Just a few points about Ronsen hammers. I have been using their hammers for over 15 years. At this time they offer hammers with either Bacon felt or German felt. The Bacon felt is a little less dense than the German felt. In earlier years the felt was even less dense. I have been using the bacon felt preferring it to the German felt. But I would like see the felt be even less dense as it once was. I work on mostly Steinway pianos from 1880 to 1930 and have measured many original hammers. Some of these pianos had very light hammers by today's standards. The Ronsen hammers being made today with Bacon felt are what I would call medium weight. They are light compared to most hammer on new pianos but are still too heavy for some of the pianos I work on. Some times I remove a lot of felt to get the hammer weight down but there is a limit to how little felt the hammer should have. I can understand your problem finding suitable hammers for some of the antique pianos you work on. You may ask Ronsen to use some of the older "extra light" felt they may have laying about. I know they use this when making hammers for square pianos. If you don't mind I would like to give you some advice. The shaping, trimming and boring done at Ronsen is not the very best it could be. I recommend doing as much of the work yourself in order to get good results. Also the hammers are hand made and often have more than a few defective hammers in a set. You should plan on this and keep an extra set on hand to provide for missing hammers. I look forward to talking with you more about hammers. John Hartman RPT John Hartman Pianos [link redacted at request of site owner - Jul 25, 2015] Rebuilding Steinway and Mason & Hamlin Grand Pianos Since 1979 Piano Technicians Journal Journal Illustrator/Contributing Editor [link redacted at request of site owner - Jul 25, 2015]
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