Hexagonal Hammer Shanks

[A440A@aol.com]

Jim wrote: 
>  In this case,
>the moment of inertia of the shank itself is almost negligible.  The moment
>of inertia is all concentrated out at the hammer head, and we don't want
>the hammer head to wiggle and wobble as it hits the string.

Ron replied: 
>>I'm talking about stiffness, Jim, not inertia.>>

hi Yall, 
    If I might suggest another consideration besides stiffness: 
Upon contact with the string, there is an entrainment between the string and 
the action.  The path of this is from string/hammer/shank/pinning/rail 
felt/rail/keyframe/keybed/case/plate/string.  We know that a loose pin, a loose 
hammer head , or a loose flange screw will change the sound of the note, so I 
suspect that there are transient exchanges of energy that occur upon impact.  I 
also suspect that the mass of the moving components is also a factor.  
  The mass of the shank just might affect the behavior of the hammer/string 
interaction.  I have not made a study of what's happening, but the lighter 
shanks I use, (presently Brooks) seem to give me a cleaner sound and a more 
malleable tone, ie, I can get a little brilliance at soft levels without having to 
suffer a strident tone at mf. This is good, because a little bit of the higher 
partials gives definition to those soft, dark notes.  
     I did change a shank from the thinner to the thicker on a fresh hammer 
job,(did you know that on a STeinway B, it is easy to break the #20 hammer if 
the action goes in a little crooked??) The note lost some clarity, and it 
wasn't because the hammer had been rehung with grooves in new places, it was a new 
hammer that had been played only enough to rough voice the piano.  That E just 
didn't sound as evenly voiced as it had.  The next day, with a spare thin 
shank, the tone came back into line.  
   So, I don't know if stiffness is the only thing to consider in shanks.  My 
percussionist friends at the school tell me that the weight and diameter of a 
drum stick or tympani mallett certainly makes a difference in the sound and I 
don't think flex is much of a consideration there.  
Regards,  
Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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