Hi, Richard, Quoting richard.ucci@att.net: > Horace, > > I believe it is acetone. It was the standard hardener sold by > Schaff,undiluted. I was afraid of that. This limits your options pretty severely. Basically to two, with the main differences being how much time your (and the owner) have and the non-musical state of things. If you have time, that is, if you can arrange to make a couple of trips back, I would try dripping some acetone into the strike point and allowing it to dampen, but not deeply penetrate the hammer. Put a piece of aluminum foil over the hammer to retard evaporation a bit. With luck, if the hammer is not too saturated, you should be able to leach some of the hardener out of the immediate area of the strike point (and farther down the shoulders of the hammer). Depending on what the outcome of the first application shows, you might either then go to needles or use a second application of acetone. If you do not have time (and, these days, who does?), you can try to reestablish some resiliancy in the crown area of the hammer. Depending on how hard the hammer has become, you might be able to use 1, 2, or 3 needles, roughly 3/8" long and work carefuly to restore things. Hammers need to work like progressive-rate coil springs. This means that they must be increasingly dense (less resiliant/pliable) as one moves from the surface toward the molding. Doing too much, too deeply destroys the core of the tone leaving you with mush. Doing too much, too shallow leaves a hammer which may sound OK at pp/p/mp, pretty blasty/nasty at FF and have very little range inbetween. At this point, you might want to be prepared to brighten up some of the surrounding hammers (a small amount) to help with evening things out. As a FYI based on years of painful experience, I virtually never "voice" only a single note, or selected notes for a client. In almost every case that I have been asked to do that, the real request is to make the instrument compensate for the technical shortcomings of the player. Ask them to play several different pieces, scales, perhaps some etudes. That way, you can get a much better picture than if they always are playing with their fourth finger on, say, a leading tone which harmonically needs to be accented, but for which they do not have the strength. Obviously, I might wind up doing precisely what they have asked for, but only after I have worked out for myself that making the change makes sense for the instrument in question. Also endemic with many owners of smaller S&S models is the need for the poor 5'7" M to sound like the ~9' D they used to play in their undergraduate days/whatever. It simply isn't going to happen; and getting into that is pretty much always a losing proposition for the technician. Hope there is some help in there for you. Best. Horace > > > > > > Hi, Richard, > > > > A little more information, please: > > > > What kind of hardener did you use, what did you use as a carrier > (thinner), > > what was the approximate strength of the solution, etc.? > > > > There are a number of approaches, most of which will depend on this > kind of > > detail. > > > > Thanks. > > > > Horace > > > > > > Quoting richard.ucci@att.net: > > > > > Hi Folks, > > > > > > Tuned an "m" today and the client wanted the a-440 note a little > louder. > > > Used some hammer hardener ,about eight drops from hypo oiler on > > > shoulders( I was pressed for time to get to next tuning) and > striking > > > point. Hammer got VERY LOUD... I am going back tomorrow to bring it > down. > > > Any suggestions? > > > > > > Rick Ucci/Ucci Piano > > > _______________________________________________ > > > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives >
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