<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Re: [CAUT] hammer softener</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> Hey, Paul, I have steamed hammers quite a bit, with varying results.  I generally use the wet cloth/hammer iron technique that Roger Jolly taught at convention and wrote a Journal article about (May 1999).  I generally get good results on Japanese hammers (Yamaha and a couple of Kawai) and older American hammers.  I generally get little or no results on Renner or Abel.  Haven’t tried it on Ronsens yet. We have a few Steinways here that had Abel hammers put on them a 10-15 years ago, before my time.  They have had little done to them since then and are now getting quite bright.  Like I can’t stand to play the top two octaves.  For these, I like to use 50/50 water/alcohol from an eyedropper.  The really bad ones get 6 drops in the bass, 5 in the tenor, 4 in the low treble, and 3 in the high treble.  If it’s not so bad, I use 5,4,3,&2.  The drops are distributed evenly around the string grooves.  The piano faculty has been very happy with the results.  I don’t expect to have to repeat this procedure for a couple of years at least. BTW, the alky/water brings back the string grooves quite a bit.  If I have some hammers that need filing, I steam or dropper first, and let them dry for 24 hours.  They usually need a lot less filing after that. Regards, Ken Z. On 3/23/07 10:46 AM, "Paul T Williams" <pwilliams4@unlnotes.unl.edu> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE> Hi again List, Does anyone know what is in the Pianotek Hammer softener?  I was wondering if there is some homemade stuff that would work as well.  They only sell it in 8 Oz bottles and until budgets increase (ha ha) to replace lots of hard, worn, really really bright hammers et al, I need to use this stuff. Trying to save some doh ray me Paul </BLOCKQUOTE> -- Ken Zahringer, RPT Piano Technician MU School of Music 297 Fine Arts 882-1202 cell 489-7529 </BODY> </HTML>