Chickering rebuild -- touchweight.

[David Love]

Paul:

I am not sure if your queery was directed to me, but if it was...

I have not used Ronsen hammers much until recently.  The old style hammer 
that they made was too large and heavy and rather dead to my ear.  Recently, 
however, I was reintroduced to them by Dale Erwin (erwinpaino@aol.com).  
Evidently, a few years ago, Ronsen started using Abel felt (coldpressed)and 
streamlined the design.  I bought a set for samples about a year ago and 
have found that the new hammers are a nice alternative when a hotpressed or 
Steinway hammer is not suitable.  I find them similar in character to an 
Isaac hammer but it's easier to get them lighter in weight when using the 
mahogany mouldings.  They are also less expensive--if that is an issue.  How 
I voice them, of course, depends on the piano but they do need some 
hardening at the extremes generally.  I still use lacquer/acetone usually in 
a 1:3 mixture, though sometimes 1:4 (I am not personally fond of keytop or 
plexiglass solutions).  Otherwise, the hammer has good firmness out of the 
box and responds well to light needling on the crown.

David Love

>From: Yardarm103669107@AOL.COM
>Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Re: Chickering rebuild -- touchweight.
>Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:58:25 EST
>
>David:
>I have used Ronsens on a variety of non-fine pianos with varying success 
>over
>the years; the greatest variation I've found comes in at voicing. Do you 
>have
>a procedure of a voicing sequence that you can generalize about, or, as 
>with
>me, too much depends on the particular piano?
>Paul Revenko-Jones

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