Unlacquered S&S hammers: was Re: Tensioned hammers and"the staple"

[Ron Nossaman]

>Ok... so what tools to we have at our disposal to ascertain what those 
>limits are
>? 

You have your ears, your brains, your experience building and replacing
soundboards, and a huge body of discussion in detail of the principals
involved in Del's Journal articles, and the pianotech list archives.
Remember all those interminable list discussions about crowning methods and
impedance control? Those weren't just academic discussions for our
intellectual amusement. That was the real stuff.  



> how do you go about selecting a set of hammers 
>for a
>particular board..

The same way you or anyone else does, as far as I know. By listening to
what was there originally, and the accumulated experience of trial and
error. Then I voice to try to cover the discrepancies - more or less like
everyone else, as far as I know. The better I guess, and the better the
soundboard works in the first place, the less I have to voice.



>All this might clear up for example why you report that Able hammers are so
>hard.. and some of us over here are scratching our heads about that as well as
>being potentially very enlighting as a whole
>
>Richard Brekne
 

I did say I used the Ables on one of my soundboards, and found them way too
hard in that instance. I used another set of them on an old Chickering with
the original board, and thought they were still too hard, but not nearly as
much so as with the new board. Another tech, putting the same hammers on
another piano, might very well have been quite pleased, as I understand
many are. 

Ron N