[CAUT] Press vs Stab voicing (was Re: The Importance of "Subject:")

[David Love]

In these situations forgo the rule about no crown voicing and just deep
needle all the way around the hammer including directly into the crown.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2010 12:05 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Press vs Stab voicing (was Re: The Importance of
"Subject:")

On Jun 11, 2010, at 10:03 PM, Ron Nossaman wrote:

> I recently got the "opportunity" to voice down a Schafer & Sons  
> grand, to some semblance of tolerability. A hundred holes in the  
> shoulders didn't make a positive difference, nor did another 50  
> closer to the crown. Side needling was equally useless


	Here we are talking about felt fibers that are so closely pressed,  
there is nowhere for the fibers to go if you insert needles. You end  
up with woodpecker holes. In that case, voice grips, steam, alcohol  
and water, alcohol and fabric softener, anything goes to get the  
darned fibers a bit apart initially.
	I have been pretty successful recently (last three years or so)  
saturating the shoulders (the area I want the needles to go into, not  
clear to the core) with alcohol and softener. Seems like 5:1 or even  
4:1 alcohol (isopropyl 91% for convenience and a little water to mix  
with the softener) to softener (Downy no scent) is what is needed to  
do the trick. With the felt saturated, and let sit 15 - 20 minutes,  
needles often go in pretty slick where they would barely penetrate  
before. So you can do three needle work, deep with pretty fast action,  
and get the shoulders into a reasonable condition.
	Anyway, I was talking about hammers, not rocks <G>. But I think
that,  
in fact, voice gripping spreads fibers with less damage to them  
(reasonable parameters of how you are using the tool) than needles. It  
does tend to misshape the hammer, though, and is hard to get  
predictable results. I've done my share of it, and it is a good  
technique to have available.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu