Improving Projection..

[Newton Hunt]

> Seriously tho Newton... arent you throwing out some hasty advice here ??

Yea, I am.  

Two reasons.

1.  There are several approaches to the problem and having enough data
to go to any choice is a real time saver.

2.  I know that type of hammer and know how it restricts the piano.

Piano hammers have to have two qualities, resilience and elasticity. 
And those have to be in balance.  Soft hammers have too much
resilience and hard hammers have none.  Elasticity is the ability of a
hammer to return to it's original shape but faster than during
compression (resilience) so that it imparts an additional kick to the
strings before it leaves contact with the string.  If those hammers
were replaced with Abel's or some other softer hammer (but not soft)
then the piano could very well have a lot more projection but with
some loss of loudness but with the ability to push the tone further
into the room and at the same time give the musician a much wider
dynamic range to work with.

There are three ways to make a hammer hard.  Chemicals, heat
compression during making and during the felting process.  I really
prefer the latter since the tone produced is more natural, open, more
of everything I like in a hammer.  Hardening hammers and softening
hammers in sets is musically counter intuitive.  Some will be needed
within a set but not the whole set.  

Yeah, I give advise but not always the years of experience behind that
advise.  A failing of mine.

		Newton