[CAUT] hammer softener

[Ken Zahringer]

Hey, Paul,

I have steamed hammers quite a bit, with varying results.  I generally use
the wet cloth/hammer iron technique that Roger Jolly taught at convention
and wrote a Journal article about (May 1999).  I generally get good results
on Japanese hammers (Yamaha and a couple of Kawai) and older American
hammers.  I generally get little or no results on Renner or Abel.  Haven¹t
tried it on Ronsens yet.

We have a few Steinways here that had Abel hammers put on them a 10-15 years
ago, before my time.  They have had little done to them since then and are
now getting quite bright.  Like I can¹t stand to play the top two octaves.
For these, I like to use 50/50 water/alcohol from an eyedropper.  The really
bad ones get 6 drops in the bass, 5 in the tenor, 4 in the low treble, and 3
in the high treble.  If it¹s not so bad, I use 5,4,3,&2.  The drops are
distributed evenly around the string grooves.  The piano faculty has been
very happy with the results.  I don¹t expect to have to repeat this
procedure for a couple of years at least.

BTW, the alky/water brings back the string grooves quite a bit.  If I have
some hammers that need filing, I steam or dropper first, and let them dry
for 24 hours.  They usually need a lot less filing after that.

Regards,
Ken Z. 


On 3/23/07 10:46 AM, "Paul T Williams" <pwilliams4 at unlnotes.unl.edu> wrote:

> 
> Hi again List, 
> 
> Does anyone know what is in the Pianotek Hammer softener?  I was wondering if
> there is some homemade stuff that would work as well.  They only sell it in 8
> Oz bottles and until budgets increase (ha ha) to replace lots of hard, worn,
> really really bright hammers et al, I need to use this stuff.
> 
> Trying to save some doh ray me
> 
> Paul


-- 
Ken Zahringer, RPT
Piano Technician
MU School of Music
297 Fine Arts
882-1202
cell 489-7529

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