Voicing down hammers

[David Love]

I would go the traditional needle route before you try alcohol and water.
Those hammers will usually respond to needles.  It isn't the most fun job
but the overall tonal result will be much better than just ballooning them
with water.  Even a few drops on the strike area is not really the right
approach for those hammers.  They need flexibility in the shoulder area and
you can only get that with needles.  

 

Start needling not below 10:00 and 2:00 and go all the way up toward the
strike point rotating the angle of the needles outward as you approach the
crown.  When you get to within about 2 mm of the crown, the needles should
be pointed toward the 5:00 and 7:00 positions respectively.  Don't try and
angle the needles in toward the tip of the molding.  It's too difficult to
penetrate and it's also unnecessary.  When you get toward the strike point
you should be needling almost tangent to the layers of felt.  Be prepared to
file the hammers a bit to regain the shape as the needling will tend to
swell the felt. 

 

The result will be much better than alcohol, snuggle or other such measures.
I would only use that in extreme situations with felt that has lost all
tension from over heating or pressing and must simply be made less dense
overall.  The Renner blue, while it is generally harder than I prefer, is
not that type of hammer and will respond to traditional needling procedures.
I have voiced many new MHs and other manufacturers using RBs using this
procedure that seemed like would not be able to be voiced down on first
listening.  Trust me, the hammers will respond.  

 

That being said, I do wish that the hammer manufacturers would figure out a
way to dial in specifications on hammer density (or be more open buyer
requests) so that they could really be custom ordered.  The trend with both
Abel and Renner is still too hard for most of my needs.  

 

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

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Erwinspiano at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 7:27 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: Voicing down hammers

 

  Hi Guys

  I am going to try Water & alcohol on a brand new set of Renner blues that
are just to Blasted hard tomorrow.  I'll try straight alcohol first & then
work my way up.

    My friend, Starr Taylor, in Florida just reported that he used 50%
alcohol & water on some "Rock hard felt" brand hammers in some school Yamaha
P-22's with very good success. Mr. Taylor reports having to apply several
applications to get the solution to penetrate down to the core.  The results
were tonally satisfying & cheaper than new hammers. Heaven forbid.

  Dale

Mr. Bondi,
    Ditto to Jon's suggestion.
    I treated a gray market G2 yesterday that was the loudest, clangiest
Yamaha I've heard in a long time.
    I squeezed the shoulders with a small 6" vice grip and even resorted
to lateral needling at 11:00 and 1:00 o'clock to bring these bricks down.
The thing doesn't sound great, but it is at least playable 
    Tom --Big Papi --Driscoll

 





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