Aside from Hailun / Wendl & Lung: is there any other manufacturer that uses cold pressed hammers for his pianos? Or is there a supplier who sells cold pressed hammers nowadays? Gregor ------------------------ piano technician - tuner - dealer Münster, Germany www.weldert.de To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:29:09 -0400 From: erwinspiano at aol.com Subject: Re: [pianotech] Cold pressed hammers Dale S. Erwin www.Erwinspiano.com Custom piano restoration Ronsen piano hammers-sales R & D and tech support Sitka soundboard panels 209-577-8397 209-985-0990 Hey Del Great post. Interestingly this very idea of introducing modest heat in the bottom form has been going on inside my head for a while now and you can probably guess why. I think this method of pressing hammers as you describe should be seen as absolutely the Cadillac of methods and surprisingly, among manufacturers....its not the hottest method out there. Pun intended, maybe they're reading these post. The idea of controlling density for certain scales is such a great idea that I would think that if any body was selling such a hammer touting such a technique they would be swamped with orders and could name their price. When I install hammers I want instant tone not hours of needling and not much juicing either,however, in fairness, there is a place for densified hammers and that is primarily for heavier string scales and voicing preferences, that and, it is a different way of controlling tonal spectrum, but its not the way I want to do it most of the time. A case in point is the new Renner Weickert felt hammer. It is a step toward my direction. I have heard that they are requiring much less needling overall. A darker spectrum and more responsive to less needling. Still pretty stiff in the octave 6 area but there is a reason for that. Never the less a huge improvement in the Renner USA line. IMHO of course The tonal pendulum is swinging slowly though and it is good to hear and have these discussions in the fore front of our minds when thinking about hammers and voicing techniques. So many of us resonate with the last 2 statements you made below!!!!!!!!!!! It is possible!! Dale It never ceases to amaze me that technicians and manufacturers alike will accept rock-hard hammers that require arm-numbing amounts of needling and/or other heroic voicing techniques to make them even marginally acceptable on some chosen piano and then, when they have finally been needled, pounded, lacquered or whatevered into shape, still manage to regard them as good hammers. To me a “good” hammer is one that I can take out of the box and install on the piano and have the thing sound the way it is supposed to sound without all that effort spent to destroy them first. There are so many ways to control the hammer making process that, with just a bit of intelligent trial and error, it should be possible—no, dammit, it is possible!— to make a hammer to suit any piano and any desired piano voice with only minimal voicing required. I regard all voicing techniques as destructive by their very nature. Shouldn’t we be looking for hammers that require as little destruction as possible? ddf Delwin D Fandrich Piano Design & Fabrication 620 South Tower Avenue Centralia, Washington 98531 USA del at fandrichpiano.com ddfandrich at gmail.com Phone 360.736.7563 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101001/3dec0e8c/attachment.htm>
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