Wow, thanks for speaking up on this Paul, The more I speak up this method the more I find people who use it. One can demonstrate the underlying principle by taking a piece of flat felt and ironing it with pressure to make it thinner. If you bend the felt repeatedly in the middle it puffs up at that point to it's former natural un-ironed state of maximum resiliency. The ball pean has a similar limbering effect on hammer felt. I'm planning a class on Felt and Wool science for KC Institute and will definitely demo this as well as the ball pean/13 degree needle technique. I'm delighted to see the recent move away from so much hot pressing of hammers. (although I haven't seen such a move in this respect on the part of manufacturers yet..) It's simply a return towards our cold pressed piano making roots. The obsession with power tends to blank out the more intimate and beautiful pianissimo ranges of the piano. You CAN have it both ways! David Stanwood "The art in hammer making has ever been to obtain a solid, firm foundation, graduating in softness and elasticity toward the top surface, which latter has to be silky and elastic in order to produce a mild, soft tone for pianissimo playing, but with sufficient resistance back of it to permit the hard blow of fortissimo playing." - Alfred Dolge >PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com wrote: >Interesting that. I've been using a variety of hammers over the years to >"stabilize" the felt after needling. Everything from small peens to the >pointy end of upholsterer's tack hammers. It's incredibly fast >and >long-lasting. >Paul
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