Julia, there should be a strong and tight connection between the shank and the hammer head. The stronger and tighter the connection, the better. A weak(end) connection will absorb energy and thereby alter the tone. I always glue my own hammers. I drill the hammers and then ream them, so, that the holes are slightly bigger than the shanks. The hammers are supposed to even wobble on the shank. I then use a white glue, an expanding glue (exactly the same glue Yamaha uses for that purpose) which completely fills up the extra space around the shank. That way it will give me 'some' time to position the hammer. After one minute it is completely solid and it remains like that. That is the factory procedure and it works like a charm. It gives us a little time to fiddle around with the hammer head and at the same time we have a very tight and strong connection. For that reason.. if I would have to correct a drilling mistake, I would not choose for sawdust with glue, but a solid piece of shank (hardwood). let it dry properly and drill again. Strong and healthy. OOR friendly greetings from André Oorebeek Antoni van Leeuwenhoekweg 15 1401 VW, Bussum the Netherlands tel : +31 35 6975840 gsm : +31 652 388008 www.concertpianoservice.nl "where Music is no harm can be" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090607/05e8dd0c/attachment-0001.htm>
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