Dear Caut and Pianotech listers, Here are a few pics I took today of a very classic hammer press GIBBS (England) , the same setup is employed at Abel . You will notice that this setup is actually used to pre press the felts, to put it in shape. This process is used because if facilitates the final gluing, when the center part is replaced by the wood molding. However, in this shop (Desfougeres in Paris), the final pressing is hand made in a manual press for what I know, and the Gibbs is only used to help. I'll be making more interesting pictures on that small workshop in Paris, where they specialized in French pianos and refelting, but as well they change leathers, pinning flanges, make hammers with leather recovering on model or on sketch. The next pictures will show some older tools like the one used in the Erard factory, and some special setups, and indeed the people working there. I hope you'll enjoy. Isaac OLEG BTW, Andre tell us about a new press that is now at Renner . As you can see the presses here are compacting the felt but don't give a lot of tension to it. This is may be the reason why goodhammers are so tricky to produce. And the initial felt shaping (before pressing) is also a very special job. Is that new press using a process like with the Dodge press, that is having a tensionning move aty the same time the felt is compressed for gluing . Up to you Andre, any more precision ? Best Regards to all. Isaac OLEG [Photos at:] http://tinyurl.com/2dqpq http://tinyurl.com/276kp http://tinyurl.com/ywtux [Direct ptg.org URLs:] https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/e6/76/12/21/EPSN0051.JPG https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/ba/01/42/63/EPSN0052.JPG https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/files/attachments/a7/6c/e7/2a/EPSN0053.JPG
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