Steinway hammers

[Roger Jolly]

Greetings Avery,
                Baldwin uses the plastic type hardeners much to my chagrin,
in fact I've lobbied for years against it. In our extreme dry climate we
notice a heck of a difference in brilliance over a 60 day period.  The
increase in brightness and the resulting change in ratios of the harmonic
series tends to thin the tone dramatically.
  Most plastic products take years to cure, hence the embrittlement of
childrens toys and key tops over time ect. the same seems to be true of
these "wonder hardeners". If you use Laquer/acetone mixture and heat with a
hair drier to accelerate the curing, it's been my experience that a more
stable result can be obtained.
  As a general practice I like to voice a little under the desired result
on new hammers, allowing for some compacting of the hammer with use. The
results give a broader tone spectrum, and a much more pleasing tone to my
ears. It enables the pianist to find that round English vowel like quality
at ppp. Yet still move the tone to an American A at fff.
  I will always file, and hot iron, string mate ect. before using any
chemicals, on most sets of hammers that I encounter, this is enough.  In
dry climates, hot dry ironing is fairly permanent, but is not so successful
in areas of high humidity.
  I have had good sucess with using white black board chalk and acetone as
a hardener.  Wrap a stick of chalk in polythene and powder with a 5lb
hammer mix with acetone to look like 2% milk. after application dry with a
voicing iron, repeat as required.
  I'm not sure I've clarified the picture any, but give it a try.
Regards Roger 





At 09:06 AM 6/6/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Roger,
>
>   I'm a little confused here. Almost everything you've said here is what
>I've always been told about the lacquer/lacquer thinner mixture. Not
>keytop/acetone.
>   That's supposed to be one of the advantages of the keytop mixture. You
>know much quicker what you have in the way of increased hardening. Am I
>misunderstanding something here?
>