<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><DIV>On Oct 11, 2007, at 1:09 PM, Douglas Wood wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Here are a couple of pictures of "shift voicers" that I have. The round one (5/8 birch dowel) has #5 needles--too big. They were lying around the shop, and I didn't take the time to recognize them as #5's. The handle is actually quite nice for me. The flat tool has #6's. Very good for mP-mF voicing level. I'm going to make up some #10 or #12 tools for deeper work--harder playing.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Note that I've just set the needles carefully into a narrow epoxy-filled saw kerf. I think I used the Exacto saw, or perhaps the little Japanese one. Space the needles carefully and leave it until hard.</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Doug</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>Hi Doug,</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Nice looking tools. Putting the needles in a saw kerf works okay - that's what I did the first couple times - but I found that it was troublesome to get them to be evenly spaced, even length, and to get the epoxy or CA into the groove and not running out or onto the needles, so I tried individually drilled holes and found the process more easily controllable. Obviously that's a personal choice of "what works best for me." With the holes drilled, I insert a needle in each hole, sharp end first, and cut off the bottom of the needle (sticking out of the hole) to length. Then I reverse them all, set them carefully to length (the holes are just over the size of the needle, so they stay put well), apply thin CA, spray with accelerant, pop them in the tool kit.</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>I like a bit wider spacing than yours look like. I measured mine, and centers are from 1 to 1.5 mm. More precisely, I usually have five needles per tool, and the outer needles are 6 to 7.5 mm apart, with the others spaced evenly (half the distance for the middle one, then half of that distance, done by eye). These two spacings are the ones I like the best, and I have tried narrower (wider doesn't seem worth trying).</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>It's not just for una corda. I use the #12 tool mostly for tre corde, in the groove touch up voicing. I can go through an entire piano, all grooves of all hammers in a consistent manner (tapering top to bottom of the piano) in about ten minutes, and "take the edge off," take it from the raucous sound of a piano that has been played too much to a pretty sophisticated "mellower" sound, but not losing bite at higher force. Very even, very controlled results.<BR><DIV><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Fred Sturm</DIV><DIV>University of New Mexico</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></DIV><BR></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>