<!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 Hammer maker’s corner.     I thought I’d like to write something about hammers at atime = when, as Mao Tse Tung said, "let a thousand flowers bloom…" there are so many = theories abroad about hammers, voicing and the like. My twenty plus years of hammer = making experience, from building the machinery, researching the felt, to making = the hammers that produce the special tone our hammers do produce, may be of = interest to some, .   1. It is 1979. I have been running a tuning and piano rebuilding = practice since 1960. I was getting a bit bored with aspects of that. I’d worked, = for two years in a piano factory owned by Aeolian which saw to it that entire forests = of magnificent maple, birch, walnut and spruce were liquidated to produce = never would be pianos. After I couldn’t take that any longer I’d = started my own practice and there the choice was mine to a far greater degree. In 1969 = I started making my own, then others’ bass strings but hammers were = a bain. I knew the tone I wanted and I tried every hammer available at this time, 1960 = to 1978 or so. American, German, Asian… none of them made it to my = standards. I will not spend hours voicing hammers to get the minimum color range I want, I = refuse. I was griping about it so much and so frequently that my friend, Tom Hathaway, a cool, aristocratic Bostonian somewhat soiled by rubbing = elbows with the 60s, said one day, -why don’t you make your own hammers? You’re crazy enough = to do it-. It was said in a tone of "stop complaining, if you’re so = unhappy, let’s see you do something about it". The words stuck, somehow and gradually, fantastically, as it seems = now, became a challenge. I had, of course, no clear idea how to go about = making hammers but more and more I wanted to. The thought of translating my = idea of piano tone, musical tone, to a tangible that music lovers could enjoy, = partake of my own idea of tone – that was exciting. Just maybe I could = contribute something gratifying to a few people. I did know I needed a hammer press. Where to start? I found a hammer = press maker in England who wanted $40000 for a press that, when he sent = photos, looked like a toy. That one was a no-no, next. I called Marty Negron at Ronson, = whose hammers I’d used and found wanting, and asked him if I could come = down, bring my machinist and make drawings of one of his hammer presses, just think of = the cheak, I can hardly believe it myself but, by then I was so taken with = the idea that nothing would stop me. Marty, the gentleman that he was, said I was = crazy to want to make hammers, that one went out the other ear immediately = but, yes, I could come down and take drawings. I called my then machinist, Dave a Yorkshire pudding and roast beef = stufed, kindly but slightly ineffectual, affecting an Oxford accent but very = pleasant Englishman and invited him for a plane trip down to Ronson Hammers in = the New York Catskills to take drawings of a hammer press. = </DIV></BODY></HTML>