[CAUT] hammer thickness trimming jig

[A440A at aol.com]

Greg writes: 

<< Does anyone know of a jig that could be

built that would accommodate trimming with the shanks on? >>

I have one, home-built.  It attaches to a tablesaw fence and allows a small 
carriage to travel back and forth, carrying a clamped hammer alongside the open 
blade.  Though it is dangerous, (I have used it for many years and can still 
play a 10 note chord), it will allow hammers to be taken into the blade at a 
slight angle, which allows the tapering.  I don't do this with the shanks on, 
but there could be an easy alteration that would allow it. (or if needed, and 
thank goodness it never has been, by tilting the saw blade, it can cut the 
extreme bevels on square grand hammers).

      I can think of an alternative,  plausible approach you might consider. 
Use a belt sander to dimension the hammers.  I would suggest this for several 
reasons; 
      It is an easy way to remove weight, the time required would be less 
than building a jig, you can easily get a refined SW curve into the action, (alw
ays a good thing), and you can repin the hammerline while you have them all 
off.  With a repinned hammerline and even SW, it is fairly simple to plot a FW 
curve that will make this piano a spectacular playing instrument, and with a 
little bit of effort on the leading, you will have a great advertisement for your 
action work for years to come.  Once you know what SW the action likes, you 
can gind the hammers to fit.   A good SW is right there, just weighting to 
happen...
      All this should cost money, and I suggest that you make the customer 
aware that using "Genuine Steinway Parts" costs more because of all the time it 
takes to make them usable, especially in the older instruments they are not 
designed to fit.  I am going to assume that you didn't get vintage, small 
hammers hung on 16 mm knuckle distance, so you have to address the entire 
reweighting and balancing of this action to a geometry and mass it was never built to 
handle.  
Regards,

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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