Hammer Types

[Delwin D Fandrich]

The primary instrument under test at this time was the new Model 175. 
 
As David says in his other posts on this topic, the Ronsen hammers with Bacon
felt were by far the favored choice of the three hammers under consideration.
The other two were Ronsen hammers with Wurzen felt and an Abel hammer that is
the result of some considerable amount of back-and-forth correspondence with
Abel on the characteristics of the hammer. It is one of the softest hammers that
Abel makes for any manufacturer. The Ronsen hammers were standard production --
no attempt was made to specify anything special for these pianos.
 
The voice of this piano has been considerably harder than I wanted and felt it
should have. The design of the piano is such that its voice should be much more
on the warmer side than what we have been hearing. I also felt it should have a
better pianissimo and a generally better timbral range than we were getting with
the early instruments.
 
I was familiar with the sound of the piano using the Abel hammers and it is my
understanding that Abel cannot make a hammer with more resilience, or "bounce,"
using their current technology. 
 
Based on what I've read about the Wurzen felt I expected good results from these
hammers but was some disappointed. To be sure, I did like the tenor and treble
on this piano quite a lot and initially thought this might become the hammer of
choice. Especially after David had spent some time voicing them down. The bass,
however, still left something to be desired and David did some rather heavy
voicing through the whole bass region of this piano which brought in a bit more
fundamental. Even so it was still overly bright and still lacked the timbral
dynamics I expected from the design. It also violated one of the goals of the
trial which was to end up with a hammer-to-design match that would develop the
desired power and tone balance without requiring much hammer voicing on the part
of the factory voicer.
 
When the piano with the Ronsen/Bacon hammers came in, we were all amazed. The
bass was rich and full. I was finally hearing the fundamental that is inherent
to the design but which we were not hearing with the other hammers. The tenor
and treble were a bit muffled at first. But, after just a bit of light sanding
over the crown of the hammers, the tone came right up.
 
As I was in and out of the room as David was doing most of the work to all of
these hammers I don't know just how much time he spent with each of them. But
with the Ronsen/Bacon hammers it couldn't have been much. The tone of the piano
came up nicely with just the light sanding giving a bright, clear treble with
enough sustain to almost make me wish I'd worked a bit harder to find room for a
couple of extra dampers. (Right now the piano uses 68 dampers but I designed in
space for 70. Plans are being made to extend the damper set to include these
extra two dampers. Based on what I am hearing now it could use 72 to 74
dampers.) No hardening solution of any kind is being used with these hammers.
Not even with the Ronsen/Bacon hammers. Yet the treble is bright and clear.
Anything harder would give the tone a harsh edge which would defeat the
character of the piano.
 
The point of this little trial was to see if we could better match the hammer
set to the piano design. In this we were quite successful. It was obvious that
the Ronsen/Bacon hammers have the best overall springiness/mass characteristic
for this design. They can be matched to the scale and soundboard design with the
least effort on the part of the voicer.
 
One last point: I have been looking at the physical characteristics of these
hammers in an attempt to better quantify the qualities of each that give the
three pianos such a uniquely different tone or voice. I'm not through with this
work as yet, but I will mention that that I have measured and weighted samples
from each set. The Abel hammers uses a mahogany molding and the two Ronsen
hammers use a soft maple molding. Their overall length and the distance across
their shoulders is virtually identical -- within +/- 0.5 mm for both. Their
widths are virtually identical -- within +/- 0.1 mm. And their mass is also
virtually identical -- within +/- 0.5 grams (with the Ronsen/Wurzen hammer being
the most massive by a very small margin and the Abel hammer being the least
massive). As well, the shape of the three hammers is so close that I am
unwilling to attribute any of the timbral differences we heard among the three
pianos to hammer shape.
 
Del



  _____  

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
David Love
Sent: October 05, 2006 10:43 PM
To: 'Pianotech List'
Subject: RE: Hammer Types



We were working mostly on the new 175 but did some testing with the 190 with
Bacon felt hammers toward the end of our session.  The current 190 in production
I believe has been modified from the original design which Del would be more
qualified to discuss.  In its current iteration the Bacon felt hammer sounded
great though the Wurzen felt hammer is not a bad choice.  The Abel felt hammers
are a bit too hard, in my view, but they will respond to voicing.      

 

 

David Love
davidlovepianos at comcast.net
www.davidlovepianos.com 

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