shop tip trivia--triming shanks

[Jon Page]

Dale,
I leave the shanks long and glue the tapered but un-arc'd heads thereon.

Once the glue dries I remove them from the rail and cut the protrusion off 
on a band saw
and follow thru with a rough cut on the arc. Then arc on the Spurlock jig.

Now I do the final weight graduation. There is minimal change needed 
because of the
manner in which I selected the shanks for mating to the hammers:

For example, the M I'm starting today, Ronson Wurzen Felt Hammers, Abel Shanks.

Bore and taper hammers. Weight hammers and plot on a chart.

This full tapered-shank set will start with mic'ing the shank widths to 
divide them into four or five groups
for bass to treble installation. Each grouping will then have their SW's 
measured and sub-grouping made.
Weights will range from as low 1.4 to 2 or more grams, that could be as 
many 7 groups.

Then I will mic the knuckle height to sort further. I'll endeavor to group 
similar heights for a smoother regulation
during the shanks selection process.

Now comes mating the shank to the hammer. Looking at the chart, I determine 
about where the SW of the shank
will place the overall SW curve and select a shank to bring the hammer 
weight respective of that curve (the curve
will be about .3g above a target regulation SW since the tails have not yet 
been arc'd).

My reasoning for this is the jaggedness of a hammer weight curve and shank 
SW's. Let's say that one were to
simply install shanks right out of the box in order. A 2 g shank could be 
place next to a 1.6 g shank. Now what if
an 8g hammer were set on the first and a 7.6 on the second. Their 
respective SW's would be 10 and 9.2; almost
a gram! However, if the shanks were swapped then each SW would be 9.6. A 
much better solution than having to
sand down the first and add lead to the second to achieve the same result.

If one were to really indulge in the inertia craze then you'd have to 
weight the hammers first to a curve to mate
with similar weight shanks.  More work than I think is really necessary 
since that inertial effect is probably
lost through the lever train.

I better get to work...

Jon

PS  Merry Christmas