If it’s always had problems why assume that it can be fixed with hammer manipulation. Have you examined other potential issues such as bass strings condition, downbearing or soundboard issues? If a couple of drops of keytop don’t bring the zing you want then I can’t imagine that collodion in any manner you choose to apply it would help. It doesn’t sound like a hammer problem to me. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Israel Stein Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 5:59 PM To: CAUT at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up) Hi, Now, back to piano technology, in the college/university setting (which I believe is supposed to be the primary function of this list) I have a new set of Hamburg Steinway hammers on our concert hall Hamburg "D" here at SFSU - we had some advanced students put some mileage on them now in the "off" season (about 20 hours' worth or so, so far) and the midrange and treble are coming along very nicely - big, brilliant tone, no harshness, just what we want. The bass and tenor are another story - weak, muddy. But I expected this - this piano always had a problematic bass, took some heroic measures to make a "sort of real bass" out of it with the last set of hammers that my predecessors put on it... So what's the latest "voicing up" concoction of choice for these hammers? The CAUT archives from a few years ago have a lot of stuff about collodion /ether solution (collodion is now harder to get and ether is impossible - it's become drug-making paraphernalia and retail sales greatly restricted). Any other goop that works on these? (Please, our European or Down Under friends - British, Norwegian or Australian brand names don't us us much good here in California - generic names, if possible...) If not, anyone have any experience with using acetone or denatured alcohol (ethyl/methyl alcohol mixture) to dilute collodion (which - from what I see on some websites - is theoretically possible)? Any other ideas? Thank you in advance, Israel Stein School of Music and Dance (currently Directorless and staffless) San Francisco State University (currently moneyless - see below) San Francisco, California (currently 26 days past the budget deadline - see above) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100726/e4e7bef1/attachment.htm>
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