Roger Jolly wrote: > Greetings Del, > Do you think it would be worth while increasing the pressure > from bass to treble on ther cold press process, to try to get more > brilliance in the top end, yet still keep a warm but singing quality in the > centre section? I'm sure some one must have some data on this. Tapered > pressure to correspond to the taper of the hammers, or am I nut's? > With modern torque wrenches, I think a variable press would be easy to > design. I think???????????????? > Regards Roger ------------------------ Hi, Roger, Sure, anything is possible. Most hydraulic presses have a stop adjustment, however. It is usually necessary to block the motion of the ram to prevent breaking the wood moldings. The wood moldings tend to get a bit thin up in the treble. At least they should. The biggest problem in the treble is with the way the felt is cut prior to pressing. The saddle should be just barely wider than the molding. Depending on how the felt strips are cut, it is often much wider than that. Sometimes up to several inches wide. The other big problem with hammers in the upper tenor and treble sections is actually the lack of responsiveness on the part of the soundboard. Last night we demo'd one of our totally non-descript sow's ear/silk purse pianos to the Puget Sound chapter. The hammers are Able "Lites" and we had to heavily needle them down through the upper tenor and treble sections before showing the piano. The sound was simply too bright. (And, no. The Abel's were not excessively hard.) We've also had to needle down Isaacs hammers on other pianos. Ditto Steinway hammers. It is very rare that we have to do any lacquering at all. And when we do it is usually with one light pass with a 1:8 (lacquer to acetone) solution. When I hear reports of hammers requiring heavy juicing to "bring up the tone" I just about automatically attribute the problem to the soundboard. Sometimes the stringing scale contributes, but mostly the soundboard. Regards, Del
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