Got some dough to blow, good prices on strings/hammers??

[Greg Newell]

Stephen,
         The knife won't work. You'll just mercilessly butcher the hammers 
and that will force you beyond any doubt to replace them. These hammers 
need replacement anyway so maybe you should just go ahead and try the knife 
to prove to yourself that it won't work and then buy new hammers.
         The reason new hammers are necessary is because of the described 
depth of the groove. These will never regulate properly of you take all 
that meat off the hammer surface. As Newton taught me (thanks Newton) the 
distance from the hammer flange center pin to the string should be the same 
as the distance to where the shank is bored into the hammer. This is 
measured from the center of the shank to the tip of the hammer. If you sand 
away this much material those measurements will never match and you will 
have regulation problems.
         I suggest you get together with your neighborhood tech and 
purchase a set of pre-bored supply house hammers and glue them on yourself 
with a little guidance from the tech. This will get you back to a usable 
piano with a little experience under your belt and a better taste for 
whether or not this is what you want to pursue. Make sense? Hope this helps.

Greg Newell

At 05:07 AM 5/17/2002, you wrote:
>Would there be anything against taking a knife and slicing the felt off
>to make the grooves shallow, then sand from there?  In the bass
>section, especially, some grooves are almost as deep as the strings are
>thick.

Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net