Vise Grips voicing is not a vice

[Dave Nereson]

I gotta side with David Love here, and others that take this position.
Hammers that require draconian treatments such as pliers-mashing to get
them soft enough to at all useable are not high quality piano hammers to
begin with. Ok ok... lots of cheapos use such hammers... and a mans
gotta do what a mans gotta do and all that I am sure... but decent
voicing on decent instruments does not involve this kind of thing.

Cheers
RicB

    I strongly disagree.  Yamahas, Kawais, Young Changs, and a few other
Asians makes are considered decent instruments, yet after a few years of
heavy playing (or even when brand new!), and in dry climates, can exhibit
extremely hard hammers that break strings.  Rather than break up and cut the
fibers with sharp needles, which, especially on Yamahas, makes them pull
apart at the crown, I opt for, as someone else put it, "deep tissue
massage".  [Webster's Collegiate:  Draconian --  . . . ; barbarously severe,
harsh].  Some of these hammers require severe treatment.  I wouldn't
consider it barbarous or harsh, if that's what it takes to be able to get
them to accept voicing needles.  As I said in another post, the Vise Grips
are for gross, initial hammer softening, not for fine concert voicing.
Steaming can also work if the hammers aren't excessively hard, but it
affects mostly the surface and doesn't loosen up the felt deep in the
shoulders.  I don't believe in stabbing and stabbing and pricking and poking
until the fibers are all torn up, there are hundreds of prick holes in the
hammer, and you've got carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow.  --David
Nereson, RPT