Unlacquered S&S hammers:

[Ron Nossaman]

> As I read it, Ron seemed to be saying  that 
>the
>kind of soundboards they are designing...with scale and all the other
>considerations he listed included, needed significantly softer hammers in 
>order to
>be able to voice well. Dels posts seem to point in the same direction...
(ie no
>laquer on very soft hammers except the top 6 or 7 notes on his new designed
>panels)

I've tried pretty hard to say exactly that. If I failed to state it clearly
enough, I apologize. Most commercially available hammers are just way too
hard for this type of soundboard. 



>So... this struck a little bell of possibilities in my head about the
potential
>for some predictability regarding the choice of hammers not dependent on our 
>ears
>and related experience... but more based on design factors.... and I thought
>well... heck... perhaps we can tell something about appropriate hammers 
>based on
>some measureable factors relating to soundboard construction... and of
course I
>wondered what those might be....

When you arrive at a design approach that sounds good with the softest
hammers you can get, you can be pretty sure that other boards you install
conforming to similar design criteria will react similarly and also need a
soft hammer. They won't all sound identical, by any means, but they will
all need hammers of similar hardness to sound good. When you build the
board yourself, you know how it was put together, what methods were used,
how it matches the string scale, and the reasoning behind the details. Even
then you can't say exactly how slight deviations from any given parameter
will affect the final performance. You might have a good general idea, but
not an exact prediction. Looking at a finished soundboard assembly, there
are a lot of potentially critical pieces of information missing from the
picture. You might be able to identify potentially serious problems in
scale breaks and impedance concerns, but you can't tell much about the
crowning and panel compression, nor about the load distribution and balance
between scale and soundboard. The dynamics depend on everything working
together. When a combination of dimensional realities differs significantly
from a design approach you know and feel you have some control over, there
are too many un quantified interactions of unknown variables involved to
have more than a general idea of what to expect. Taking enough measurements
and spending enough time, you can get a rough idea, but you can hear
everything you are going to have any control over with a hammer change just
by playing a few notes and listening to what you get back.



>BUT... grin.. looks like I was barking up that old  Satswookie tree I got 
>out back
>again... Still... its was an interesting thought while it lasted... :) 
>Thanks for
>the replies Jim and Ron.
>
>--
>Richard Brekne

Satswookie huh. If it doesn't have hair, it's an Ersatzwookie and you were
robbed.

Ron N