On Feb 13, 2011, at 6:25 AM, Avery Todd wrote: > Somehow I missed this part of the thread. I understand the squaring > thing from the Shigeru tech up to the point of what Ed suggested. > Could you or he elaborate on the "every other hammer" thing? I'm not > doing much of this anymore since I retired from U of H, but who > knows. <grin> Thanks. Did you catch the photos I posted? (They help a lot) A strip of wood is inserted to hold up every other hammer, to the point that the shanks of the raised hammers are even with the crowns of the neighboring ones. The raised hammers are centered between their neighbors, using a flange tool, or screwdriver if necessary. This needs to be done very precisely, judging the gaps on either side as being equal. A solid back drop helps (fallboard). Your eye needs to be precisely centered on the hammer, which can be judged by looking at the insides of the two neighboring hammers. You should see the same amount of the inside of each hammer. For the angled hammers, you are not sighting down the shank, but must have your eye in line with the angle of the hammer. Once the raised hammers of that section have all been centered between neighbors, remove the strip of wood and let them fall back to rest position. Now check the spacing between the crowns: that is, the spacing of those same hammers between the crowns of their neighbors. Even numbered hammers, for instance, if that's where you started - keep track. If they are spaced unevenly, burn to correct, to center each one. Now do the other half of the hammers the same way. Note that the "crowns of the neighboring hammers" are simply position holders, fixed reference points. It is irrelevant how square or unsquare those neighboring hammers are. You can ignore everything about those hammers except for the position of the crowns. Do not worry about the hammers all being parallel until you are done with the whole process. If you do it right, they will be beautifully parallel and nicely spaced (though they will have to be re-aligned to the strings - actually I find that aligning to strings goes a lot faster with a new set of hammers if I do this process first). Also, it is absolutely essential that traveling has been refined before you do this. Does that make it clear? Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu "I am only interested in music that is better than it can be played." Schnabel
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