<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> Ari Isaac   Hammermaker’s corner4.   I had used the services of a small machine shop to make some parts = for my bass string machinery. The owner, the only man working in the small, = poorrly lit shop, looked like he had grown into his lathes and milling machines. A = serious man he did excellent work but, as I was to discover presently, he only = made what he could read on drawings. This was unfortunate because Dave, the = machinist who had come down to Ronson with me, had made his elaborate drawings on a = pocket notepad. I wanted to do something evil to him but as he hadn’t = charged me very much for accompanying me I had to find another outlet for my = frustration. We decided to build the frame of the hammer press out of railway = carriage building steel channel, a very strong 4’ channel deep welded at = the corners with a special welding machine. The bed, the platform against which the = downward pressure goes, was to be 1.5’ thick as were to be the side plates, = the ones pushing the felt from the shoulders down to the wood molding. To push = the side plates we used socket head screws 1’ in diameter. I still have one = of those and they are monsters, about 7’ long. To turn those mothers I = purchased a Snapon ž’ socket drive. It came with a handle that was a hefty bar about 24’ = long and it packed a lot of power. While the press was being built I called around about getting my = felt. The company who had, to my ears at the time, the most magic name in hammer = felt was one called Royal George. Its real name was Murray Whitehead and it is in = England. When I told them what I wanted, how I wanted my felt = constructed they replied, with the appropriate British accent, "We make fine hammer felt". The answer was much the same when I asked = about the wool blend; fiber diameter, density and density graduation along the = sheet of felt. About sheet weight they were prepared to allow that they made a = few different weights of hammer felt sheets and here I had a choice. When it came to how many sheets I had to buy for them to even bother = filling my order – the quantitee, for me at that time was astronomical. I = couldn’t visualize ever making that many sets of hammers. This was the first = wakeup call to the real world, there were to be many. The felt Whitehead made at that time was excellent. When it arrived, = after two months and when, about the same time, the press arrived and was set = up the big moment was at hand. I was to make my first set of hammers. I had a = lot more excitement than knowledge or understanding and I couldn’t wait to = see the hammers taking shape right there, by my own hands I had spent a year working on the hammer project and a lot of money. = The press, well, it never worked. I couldn’t believe it when, after = two or three tries the press was bent out of shape. It was not the frame, it held. = The side plates, 1.5 inches thick steel was actually bent by the resistance of = the felt being pushed towards the molding. My disbelief was profound and my disappointment… I wanted to climb the wall, it was simply not = possible for that thick steel plate, one I could never lift because of its weight, to bend = like that.. but that’s precisely what happened. Cursing, as I = discovered very quickly, wasn’t enough to fix the problem. The press had to be junked. We took it all apart and returned the = frame to the machine shop. The steel parts, clamps, blocks, screws, stayed in my = shop till I could get over my disappointment over my own failure enough to = dispose of them. Now I learned my first real lesson about hammer making. It was a = difficult one and I had to learn it over and over – I had to research and = fully understand every minute part of everything to do with hammers before I could = successfully make even one set of hammers. Every inch along the bass-treble axis of = the felt sheet was different. The geometry of the individual felt strip which = would become the set of hammers had to be precisely worked. Every aspect of a = hammer press, one to do what I wanted, had to be researched, drawn up, = researched again and precisely understood before it could be built. After being built, = like every special machine, it would have to be debugged. I began to realize that = to make the kind of hammer I had in mind, the hammer press I would need to have = built would be unlike any I had seen and, I suspect, unlike any in the = industry. Copying was out of the question.     Back to the drawing = board, hell, back to crawling. </DIV></BODY></HTML>