<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> In principle this is sound reasoning as far as it goes. It does not take into consideration however the physical limitations imposed on hammer velocity for a given hammer mass in the context of the system we call the action. Nor does it take into consideration things like increased flexing of the shank, the requirements for counterbalancing both in static and dynamics senses. All else being equal... this would work just as well as Ed McMorrows Light Hammer philosophy.  In his case.. the lack of weight would be compensated by the increased velocity yeilding the same nett impact force.... velocity times mass.  If it was just as simple as this... then any combination of velocity times mass that equaled any other given combination would yeild the same force on whatever stopping force was encountered. But as we know... it isnt. Not to say that to some degree one can employ these ideas to achieve some resultant effect... but I dont really think these have been quantified really yet.  Clearly, IMHE in anycase.... an equal velocity times mass given to significantly different hammer masses will not yeild the same tonal affects no matter what voicing is done.... but just what exactly are all the contributing causes to the resultant differences are not, I think, known at this point... only guessed at. I find folks attempting to use hammer weights that are equivalants of what might be called 3/4 over load Strike Weights... ala Stanwood... i.e. a level above his smart chart hammers.  Bass SW's starting at 15 grams....  Personally I find this kind of thing .... well untenable in the end.  Just as much so as I find the extreme light hammers proposed by McMorrow (whome I have great respect for as I do Stanwood).  Using Stanwoods gauge again... I see a max SW curve of perhaps 1/2 tops and a minimum of perhaps 1/4 medium as in the useble range for about 99.8% of anything I can possibly imagine as acceptable. Outside of these mass levels you run into all manner of other considerations that need to be delt with... all yeilding in the end what is what I believe all the data out there tells us will not be met with acceptance in the world of pianists. There are always the exceptions... Horowitz comes to mind...  I just took a 20 year old Steinway D that had had a hammer change done a few years back without regard to key leading. The Strikeweight Curve was fairly even and ended up a pretty smoothed out 1/4 top.  Ratio (ala  Stanwood) of 5.7 +.... and I balance the keys to just slightly above his recommended maximums to end up with a 36 gram BW.  The pianist... one of todays Rubenstein types.... simply loved the touch.  New bushings and polished key pins of course helped as well...   I think the most important thing to remember in voicing using hammer mass as a tool.... is to keep things in reasonable ball parks. No one is going to hit a 580 foot home run. Just some thoughts from the other side of the pond Cheers RicB <blockquote>      It is well established that adding weight to a hammer changes the tone. Flexibility or springiness of the material added is also a factor. Analogy: A student railroad engineer was instructed to bring a 100 car train to a precision stop.  Immediately after doing so, there came a jolt, and the locomotives were pushed well past the target before stopping again.  The student was instructed that brakes should have been deployed to compress the train prior to the stop.   Stopping with a stretched train allowed the rear of the train to still be moving forward after the front had stopped so when the "slack ran in" the front was pushed forward. Consider a piano hammer as a train, the strike point being the locomotive, and the tail the rear cars.  A hard hammer with no spring is like a compressed train, where the tail stops at the same time as the strike point. In a soft hammer the weight of the tail is still moving upwards after the strike point has stopped.   A factor in tone is from the type of stop made, or how much "run in of slack" or "after push" occurs when strike point stops. You can voice rock hard hammer heads by adding controlled flexible weight appendages to create the optimum amount of springy "after push" or "run in of slack".  Choose a glue or caulk which dries flexibly or springy and add to the inside of the tail cove. Trim and shape it for weight and amount of flex.   A pronounced blob of glue of a given amount will have more flex than the same amount spread in a thin layer inside the tail cove.   This is a viable voicing method to develop and use in your arsenal. -Mike Jorgensen  </blockquote> </body> </html>