<!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> Hammermaker’s corner 8.   Ari isaac.     At this point two things came together; the dimensions of the felt = sheets I would use and the shape of the bottom cawl, or former in the press. = Assuming the felt had a lot of resilience, spring, how to transfer it to the hammer? = The answer, to my mind, was to extrude the felt into the bottom cawl and to = wipe it around the molding while holding it stretched. This would provide the compression and, unlike every other hammer I had seen, a lot of tension = around the outside, right around the hammer. I had, by now, been to a number of = hammer making establishments like Steinways in New York, Ronsons, Best and = Bohne in toronto as well as Hale in Boston. I had, also, seen photographs of = European presses. Every press I’d seen acted like aglorified clamp; the = bottom cawl folded the felt around the tip of the molding but no extruding pressure = and no tension around the outside was, or could have been imparted to the felt = because of the cawl shapes and because the various felt sheets used had no = sheering strength to speak of. This presented me with a double edged difficulty; = to build maximum density into the felt sheet – appropriate to the = particular place along the bass/treble axis of the scale – while, at the same time, not = making the sheet so dense as to have it crack, split, while being pressed. The = pressures and tensions used to press IsaacCadenza hammers are tremendous, far = greater than anything I’d seen in the industry. All This needed a precision in = designing the felt sheet and a special cawl. I had been introduced to C., a small partner in a huge machine shop. = C. is one of the brightest people it has been my good fortune to know. = Italian, came to Toronto as a kid, what C. has forgotten is more than everyone else I = met, including myself, of course, has ever learned. I haven’t measured = what he has forgotten, it’s just a way of expressing my awareness and = appreciation of C’s knowledge and skills. He is a prince of a man with a heart of gold which = he covers up by a rough extierior. "Shiit, what do YOU want?" was his telephone greeting when I used to = call him at the shop. I would tell him my problem which, to me, was urgent. "I’m up to my a-hole in alegators. Why should I fix YOUR = problem. You and everyone else." By then I knew him and I would retort with something like "Because I’m uglier than you". Or "Because I have a bigger nose than you do". Or something raunchier. = All of this was just his way of sounding tough. He would fix my problem every = time, he would fixit quick and he would fix it right, I mean, really right. It was C who had give me the toughest test of my life. High school, university… forget it. One of our first meetings was about him = making the machined parts of the hammer press. He said he would make the cawls in = his way and he was, as usual, pretty certain that his way was correct. It = usually was, but that time I said no, I needed him to do it my way. "why?" he asked, his eyes boring into my face saying "you’d better give me a damn good reason to do it your way or = else you can forget it." I knew I’d arrived at the crucial moment of the whole hammer = making project. If I could not convince C of the correctness of my reasoning which aimed = at the tonal quality I wanted to produce – I would be dismissed by him as = a poor fools and I could tell so very clearly that C did not suffer fools gladly. = I passed the test. He saw my reasoning and while he hated doing it my = way, because it entailed complex machining, he made my very special cawls and = he saw to it that they were beautifully made. The greatest benefit – we = became friends. It was now time to start making hammers with the second hammer press = and the felt sheets especially designed to my own specs. I glued up a set of = moldings and a strip of felt using the normal yellow glue. I closed the press and = came back about two hours later. I opened the press and guess what… the = felt strip opened flat, the glue as wet as the moment I’d squeezed it out of = the bottle. My disappointment was profound, I was convinced I was not good enough to do = this. I was just trying to impress myself and everyone else but here was the = bare truth – a strip of unglued felt with wet glue spread all over it and a = set of moldings in the holding trey, I started to, mentally, beat up on myself. What I = needed to learn that day but didn’t, was that every step of the way needed = to be researched to the last detail and the research would have to be directed = to making hammers my own way. Just because company X used a certain glue to = make its hammers would not mean I could use the same process, the same would = be true for every facet of hammer making, except I didn't’learn the lesson = that day. To learn it and see it for what it was - – the right to do things my = own, one’s own, way, took a long time. I did, eventually find an adhesive that glued the felt to the = moldings successfully. This was after a parade of adhesive salesmen who, each, = promised their product would glue the outer sking of a jumbo jet to the frame or = glue the earth to the moon or some other fantastic claim. I would try their glue according to their specs, some of them stayed to observe while their = product performed, only to come up with nothing. Once I’d found the glue = that did the job and the first set of hammers came out of the press – I needed = to slice the hammers. The lesson of the felt and the glue was going to be learned yet = again. </DIV></BODY></HTML>