Restring and/or Rescale? 30 YO Yamaha C3

[Richard Brekne]

Over there David Stanwood has a good deal of knowledge specific to your 
question.  Andre here in Europe also has built up a good deal of direct 
knowledge.  I believe Stanwood often does a class about hammer felt, how 
its made, what grading is about etc.

One thing I believe is part of how the grading of the felt is determined 
is the fineness of the individual felt fibres themselves.  Higher grade 
hammer felt is finer stuff.  More processing in this regard means 
seeling out thicker stands and as such will not affect the degree of 
lanolin left in the felt.  The elasticity in the individual fibres for 
any raw material will be unchanged as well.   What will be changed is 
the number of fibres in any given finished felt block.  At least thats 
my understanding at present. Stanwood may volunteer more on the subject.

In the end tho... I have the sensation that it is easily as much the 
pressing process that molds the felt into the hammer that is important 
as much as the ground floor quality of the felt itself.  I cant lay any 
specific scientific data on the table, but Renner Wurzen II hammers are 
much nicer to work with and produce much nicer results then their Wurzen 
I hammers do.  I also understand that Yamaha chooses Wurzen II for their 
most expensive line and uses I for the rest at present, tho I still have 
not been able to confirm directly from Yamaha that this is so.

Talk to Stanwood about felt.

RicB


    Can anyone comment about different grades of felt generally, Wurzen felt
    specifically.  Does a higher grade mean more processing
    necessarily?  If so,
    does it also mean less lanolin left in the felt, less elasticity for
    in the
    fibers or anything else that might be considered a detriment?  It
    seems to
    me that higher grade may not necessarily produce a more resilient hammer
    (felt), or better tone.  Any comments?

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