Julia
My only direct contact with the Abel"natural" was a set I received that were simply harder than any piano needed. After probing a few hammers with a not 6 needle it was obvious they were in my opinion not Natural but were treated in such a way as to make them un-natural. I sent them back. I have squeezed others in the "Erwin-Davis Flex-o-meter" and found them to be very spring like compressing down over the middle and out into the shoulders and then regaining shape.
A close friend of mine whose ears and skills I trust implicitly has used many sets and has liked them very much. Needing required to shift partial balance, is normal in a well made hammer of this style of manufacture.
Hi Julia,
The result you have experienced is no different than so many other types of sets of hammers that are too stiff, and after needling, do the nasty sounding rebound thing. How disappointing. But not all is lost.
This may simply be a situation where perhaps not enough needle work has yet been done to tame this particular set of hammers. You may go back for a second round otf treatment. If the shoulders have been adequately re-naturalized :)... thru needling, discontinue the hope that more will help or permanent damage could occur. Perhaps a few needle strokes in the crown will help increase sustain and inoculate against rebound. Support the tails on the bench and drive a few stitches into the crown fairly deep on a few test notes. Listen and make a determination as to the affect. Re-treat the area as required.
The shoulder needling will only be partially effective if the core (ie.crown to the molding) of the hammer is still frozen/too stiff. Remember that a hammer is technically supposed to be a non-linear felt spring, not a shock absorber, and being such it must have a unitized movement to function well. This definition is not mine , it is from "The five lectures on the acoustic piano." FWIW....Worth reading
I have to my own satisfaction over several decades found that the more closely a hammer fits this model of a spring the less amount of rebound it exhibits and has the best chance of producing a voicing stable experience. A hammer acting as a spring has been treated carefully in manufacture and great lengths have been take to ensure the Wool is left in springy state. It has a memory. The"Natural"resilience of the wool will be the dynamic force working for us in our favor to create tone by its "natural" state of being. Any hammer which requires excessive needling is perhaps no longer in its..."Natural" state and may be a clue telling us something is a miss.
Learning to read hammers before they are installed is possible and a necessary skill to develop. Some techniques are squeezing, probing a few with a no.6 needle, testing the side of the hammer with a finger nail for stiffness or lack of. Much has been said on list about hammer sampling and it is still good advice.
For me in my practice any hammer that repeatedly does the nasty rebound thing after sufficient needling this is unacceptable and for me is failed hammer transplant procedure and if I got that far I also failed to read the hammers for the application.
The experience of needling the felt fibers closing up is exactly what happens to felt because it wants to re-interlock. It does it...Naturally?
Ok enough said
Dale S. Erwin
www.Erwinspiano.com
209-577-8397
-----Original Message-----
From: Al Guecia/AlliedPianoCraft <AlliedPianoCraft at hotmail.com>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Mon, Jul 19, 2010 4:00 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Abel naturals - report
Julia, I have had good success with light steaming. I use a thin canvas type cloth that doesn't hold much moisture. Wring it out as dry as you can, place the cloth over the hammers and roll a hammer iron over each hammer for just about one second. There is no hammer distortion, it's very effective and will last much longer than needling.
Al -
High Point, NC
From: KeyKat88 at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 11:18 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Abel naturals - report
Greetings,
Well.... I replaced my Yami U3's original hammers with Abel naturals in Feb . To me, they are very firm hammers that need alot of shoulder easing; Their tone is nice though, once they are voiced enough. It seems like I get them to sound good and then a few days later, the fibers "re close" ...sort of like when you bunch up a plastic bag in your hand and it expands/puffs back out.
Julia
PA
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