Heavy hammers

[Richard Brekne]

Ted Simmons wrote:
> 
> The key information is that the piano was fine before the new hammers were
> installed on the old shanks.  I have no more information than that.  I don't
> know who did the job nor what hammers were used.  No I didn't weigh the
> hammer/shank assemblies.  I placed the two together for comparison and saw
> that the old hammers were massive compared to the new hammer.
> 


Ted... I just have to repeat what I said in the first post. Strikes me
as a very typical hammer replacement job done by someone not fully aware
of touchweight concerns. God knows I've been guilty of this kind of
thing too in earlier years. Typically, this kind of thing results from a
relatively inexperienced tech who has read or heard some routine for
doing the actual physicalr replacement of hammers, and thinks thats all
there is too it. Often you can look at the job and see pretty good
hammer allignment, nice tail lines and strikeline... attention paid to
good and consitant rake. This is also typical of young techs doing this
job... they want it to be good. 

If you will take a few strike weight (SW) samples, (5 or 6 will probably
do) I expect you will find that the new hammers are around 1 - 1.2 grams
on average heavier then the old ones. In which case you will need to
remove that much SW. If you are not familiar with Stanwood routines...
this is a great opportunity to get started. But all the hammers on the
appropriate SW curve (that most closely  matched the origional set) and
your customer will be very happy indeed.

Cheers
RicB