[CAUT] hammer line

[Tim Coates]

Ric,

I have been following this thread also, but I'm not ready the buy  
into using shanks to even the SW.  I find your second paragraph to be  
more down the line of thought I use.

The piano is supposed to be a percussion instrument.  Percussionists  
are very particular about their sticks and mallets.  I approach the  
shank as a drum stick.  Each shank makes its own pitch when tapped.   
It is hard to hear for some, but they differ.  I sequence the shanks  
from lowest pitch to highest pitch in the treble.  Once the  
underlying "noise" from the shank is sequenced then I weigh off the  
hammers to create a smooth SW from hammer to hammer.  I don't end up  
with the problems others talk about with the strike line.  I have  
never checked to see if there is a correlation between the shank  
weight and the pitch.  I know there are faults to this approach, but  
I see faults to the other approaches.  Who among us is faultless?

Also, since I rebuild all my pianos with the Wapin Piano Bridge I  
don't have problems with the hammerline being "funkified".

Tim Coates


On Feb 15, 2008, at 2:14 PM, Richard Brekne wrote:

> Timely post... I just got back from an evening sorting session of a  
> standard set of shanks from Renner.  Lowest weight was 1.47 grams  
> and highest weight was 2.14 grams.  I sort them in ascending order  
> for each size (width) and after weighing my dead weight hammer  
> weights do a spread sheet sort on the hammers to make the best  
> match with the strike weights.  Saves me all kinds of work evening  
> out finished Strike Weights.
>
> I'm not exactly sure how this eases my voicing work.... somehow  
> seems counter intuitive that the heaviest hammer matched with the  
> lightest shank will voice similar to a neighbor hammer which by  
> happenstance has the lightest hammer and heaviest shank.
>
> I do run a check on the upper treble with a sounding block before  
> sinking any needles in. Nice to identify any rouge shanks before I  
> get started.
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>
>    Jim and Alan,
>      You guys have probably thought of this but I thought I'd mention
>    it anyway
>    because I haven't seen it as part of this thread.
>    Calibrating the strikeweight from at least note 52 up before
>    assessing the
>    hammerline makes what you hear make more sense. I glue my line on
>    straight
>    with a calibrated strike weight, after sorting shanks by weight,  
> and
>    then I
>    seem to have less need to vary the strikeline.
>     I don't have any hard data from the way I used to do it before. I
>    think the
>    real difference comes from the sorting of the shanks as they can  
> vary a
>    whole gram or more. Calibrating strike weight without sorting  
> the shanks
>    really makes alot of unnecessary work and can make for some funny
>    looking
>    hammers in the treble section.
>    At least this is something to consider. My treble voicing issues
>    have become
>    considerably reduced by doing it this way. I think that before I
>    used this
>    procedure I was more inclined to funkify my line than currently,  
> not
>    that I
>    don't. Maybe I just feel like I get a better result overall. And
>    maybe it's
>    actually less funkification. I wish I could prove it but I wasn't
>    looking
>    for that particular improvement so I didn't do a good before and  
> after.
>    Anyway there's 2 more cents.
>    Chris Solliday
>
>