Erwinspiano@aol.com wrote: > In > > > > > > >Ric wrote > Lacquer DOES ruin a hammer from the perspective of any > > future needling-up. But of course it does not <<ruin>> a hammer from > > some other perspective. > > > >*It ruins the style hammers you"re using perhaps but Ruin implies to > make useless. I have a lot of lacquerd hammers out there with lacquer > in them sounding just grand. None of these hammers are made in the > same fashion as the ones you are accustomed to. I'm just trying to > make the distinction. > .* Dale... I dont mean to be rude hear... but I am not going to argue sematics back and forth with you when I have already twice gone out of my way to qualifiy very precisely the use and valid domain for the word "ruin". Your sentence above is in essense nothing more the a repeat of my last two comments on this point, with a certain degree of apparrent defensiveness added in. I say again... lacquering hammers will ruin then with respect to any eventual needling up attempts later. And that goes for all hammers, tho perhaps that is less important for hammers that never had any tension to release to begin with. This is not in itself a wide sweeping criticism against useing lacquer perse... it is exactly what it says it is... a criticism of one particular mis-use of lacquer. > > >..* Ok as long as were clear that were talking about the reener > style of hammer.* I really dont see how much more I can go out of my way to make that point clear. > > _I've heard lots and lots of voicing classes through the years...and > tried just about any trick in the book I dont find that you can > increase power by useing lacquer.... you can increase volume... > loudness. But thats a different matter._ > _ >> Please define power_ > Difficult to define precisely... but it is a more encompasing concept then loudness.... I get the sensation that it sort of like what happens when you add mass to a hammer and dont change anything else. You are not really making the hammer louder and brighter as you are making it louder and bigger. Sorry if words fail me here... but the effects are different, and I am certainly not the only one to notice. > > We dont use heat pressed hammers... but they do require needling. > *>> You certainly do. It isn't just pressure that makes the Renner > style hammer densified. I've seen the Wurzen felt. It's quite a soft a > springy felt & to get it to the configuration of density you work with > requires both. > * Well... I'll let you argue with the manufactures. I am not actually there when they are produced... but I am informed these are not heat pressed. They term the process cold pressing. Certainly are not the kind of heat pressed hammers we've run into from earlier on in Japan. > > > These extremes of heat & pressure also work against the way felt is > > made. The springy wool is now made unspringy or less resilience. > There is no extreme heat being used. Felting itself makes wool less resilient... heck you can felt down to a damned hard block of wool if you carry on long enough. > I'll defer to David Stanwood and Andre on how hammer felt is made... but > the pressure bit is kind of a hand in hand thing with the felting process. > *The pressure I'm speaking of happens in the press > * And just how is this pressure in conflict with the felting process in general > ....>>>Ok Tension means stress & stretch or pull right? Compression > means compaction or densification right? > Now I want to make a statement that you can prove for yourself. > /_The Ronsen hammers is the most tensioned hammer in the world._/ > & No I'm not a salesman. Tension goes in more then one direction Dale. Tho Ronsens may (tho I can not confirm this) have more of this in one particular direction then any other hammer... that hardly makes them the most tensioned hammers in the world. > If the felt on your preferred hammer is really stretched & > tensioned, as you keep referring to,then if you should be able to cut > the hammer open from the strike point to the molding with a razor& it > should immediately & dramitically bloom open. Especially in the Bass & > tenor hammers. > This is exactly what happens with the Ronsen hammers. All of the > hammers Ronsen makes will do this but the Wurzen felt most of all. > I've been at this for years now. I've cut open all kinds of hammers & > I don't believe the phenomena you refer to as tension is what your > using to get tone it's the compaction or compression. Most hammers > will blomm open to some degree but it's not usually dramtic. Isaac > hammers will also do this to some degree. > The point is that a stretched elastic felt around a hammer molding > should equal incresed springiness & it does. > Also the hammer your using is a _/fine hammer/_ & gets a fine tone > but I do not believe it is under much tension as I've expressed > it,It's under compaction & the inherent springiness of the felt is > your ally invoicing & I know that we agree on this. Sure... if you want to call that compaction go ahead... but seems to me that when a compacted peice of felt is stretched around a hammer moulding it is bound to have more tensions in more directions then a less compacted piece of felt that is strectched perhaps more in the single direction around the molding. In anycase... the fact that needling up actually works for tensioned hammers, and apparently works best for felt of a certain density and quality (read wool strand thickness and consistancy...and probably a few other things as well...) pressed at at certain degree of pressue. You simply can not get that increase in power when needling up the Ronsens I am accustomed too... (I have installed some sets that were produced about 25 years ago). They, in anycase... wouldnt respond thus. In fact over stressed Royal George hammers would react more needling up then those Ronsens did... but then the Ronsens (those in any case) were not made for this purpose. > > > Dont get me wrong in all this folks... I'm not like <<down>> on the > whole lacquer tradtion here... tho I do obviously personally prefer the > tensioned hammer. I /am/ concerned about misuse of chemicals of > course... which is why I brought all this up... but that applies to > mis-use of needles as well when it comes down to it. > *>>i am concerned with the misuse of chemicals as well & if you've > heard nothing else the right hammer though it be perhaps softer > doesn't need much but tolerates it very well without being /_ruined. > More pre-voicing & regulation comes before any juice or needling. That > every one agrees on._/* > * I'm also concerned about the mis-information or lack of clear > understanding of terms & definitions applied to a product that don't > them possess ie _tension_ or _maximum resiliensce_ which is why I > chimed in on this thread.* Well, it seems to me then that instead of getting over reactive and defensive over an illusionary attack on the general perspective of lacqured hammer technique, you should stop to read a bit more carefully what actually folks have been writting. Again.. I dont mean to be rude.. but I have had to repeat clear clarifications on things I havent said three times now and I hardly see how that is productive. Nor do I see one little iota of credence to the claim that anyone has displayed a lack of understanding about what hammer tension is all about.... we actually havent even been talking about that... (yours is the first post to really take up that side of things) so it is rather impossible to have shown any lack of understanding thus to begin with. Now... for the 4th time.. I am not attacking the whole perspective of lacquering hammers. I am questioning whether or not many techs have come to reach too quickly and use too liberally the bottle of juice without really knowing what they are up to... because it is touted as easier and quicker perhaps, and perhaps also because needling obviously is a demanding process to learn to master. No need to get all defensive about lacquer in general here Dale > * *Regards--Dale > > > Cheers RicB
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