Wurzen felt

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: May 13, 2003 8:31 AM
Subject: Re: Wurzen felt


>
>
> >
> > Yes, I've read this quote as well. Of course it tells us absolutely
nothing
> > about how heavy any individual set of hammers might have been. It also
> > tells us nothing about their physical characteristics: how dense they
might
> > have been, how resilient they were, etc. We can be fairly sure they
were
> > cold pressed so we can assume they were probably softer and/or more
> > resilient than anything common today. But even this is speculation.
>
> But doesnt the quote also include first hand observations about the exact
same
> problem situation as we've been discussing ? That heavy hammers affected
tough
> in a negative way, but tone in a positive way ? And I am curious... is a
22
> pound sheet the same thing as saying 22 pound hammers... as in did the
Japanese
> hammers you mention below use a 29 pound sheet ? Also... are you saying
that a
> 22 pound sheet can result in a lighter hammer then a 18 pound sheet
(assuming
> same core material) ?


This is the weight of the sheet of felt from which the felt strips making
many hammer sets are cut. How many sets of hammer might be made from this
sheet is a variable. How much scrap felt is left over from this sheet is a
variable.

Some years back I was redesigning a vertical piano for Baldwin. As part of
the overall design package I also designed a new hammer. The new hammers
were slightly larger and heavier and they had a slightly different shape.
To accomplish this we made new press cauls and changed the taper of the
felt sheet, increasing the thickness of the outer felt through the tenor
and bass. The new hammer was both slightly larger and heavier. The sheet of
felt from which the original hammers were cut weighed in at 12
pounds--hence the hammers were "12-pound" hammers. (I don't remember how
many sets of hammers were cut from these sheets. Around 12 to 15?) As may
be, the sheet of felt from which the same number of new hammers were cut
weighed in at 14 pounds. So we now made the same number of "14-pound"
hammers per sheet. Now, this is a feature no marketing department can pass
up so news of this change immediately went into the marketing story--our
piano has "14-pound" hammers your's only has "12-pound" hammers.

Of course, it only took a couple of months for a competitor to introduce
their own "14-pound" hammers.

Several years later, as I got to know the folks who made the hammer felt I
heard the rest of the story. Not to be outdone this piano maker had asked
the felt maker to make their sheets of felt several inches longer. This
change increased the weight of the sheet from 12 pounds to 14 pounds. It
also enabled them to cut several additional sets of hammers from each
sheet. And it enabled them to advertise "14-pound" hammers without going to
the effort and expense of changing the actual hammers at all.

No, I'm not at all impressed by claims of "14-pound," or "28-pound," or
"39-pound" hammers. Yes, a so-called 22-pound hammer could be both smaller
and lighter than an 18-pound hammer. It's all meaningless verbal crap. And
the hammer makers and the piano makers all know it.

If David Stanwood's work accomplishes nothing else, simply calling
attention to this stupidity should be enough to earn him a place in piano
history.

Del