Evidence of overlacquered hammers

[Erwinspiano@aol.com]

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David
  I wasn't going to get into this but I've followed this  thread & I totally 
concur with your previous post & the one below &  have experienced the effects 
you chronicle below with hard pressed hammers.  Usually the difficulty is on 
older flatter board & my experience has  been with Abel & Renner USA type 
hammers. These older boards often have no  use for the kind of hardness inherent 
in these brands. Even massive needling  can't seem to arrive at a tone 
acceptable to my ear or that of the customer in  these cases. One brand doesn't fit 
all.
  David I. I tend to agree with you about voicing  stability of less 
"tensioned" hammers holding up. Since they are inherently more  
flexible,resilient,less tensioned,  whatever the middle of the hammer isn't  frozen & still acts 
springy. I've witnessed this at CSU Sacramento in a  most dramatic way.
  2 Mason As, one with  Isaac hammers & one with  a Renner hammer. Both in 
practice rooms side by side both played umteen hours a  day for 7 years. The 
renners  have massive string grooves & are worn  out & the Isaac barely shows 
string grooves & sounds great.
  Both were voiced when installed. One of many  experiences with this. My 
friend Peter Clark is a master voicer. You decide fact  of fiction
    Dale

The  evidence of different soundboards (and soundboards in various
conditions)  needing hammers of varying densities is so abundant in the
piano circles  that I run in that I don't even know what to say to those
who are  interested in this possibility except try it for yourself and
see.   You wouldn't put a very hard Renner hammer designed for a
Boesendorfer on a  piano that would sound best with a Ronsen soft Bacon
felt hammer--and there  are many such examples out there.  A lengthy
explanation as to why  that might be is more than I am prepared to get
into at this point but in  as much as new soundboards require different
types of hammers (think Yamaha  hammers on a NY Steinway or vice versa)
so will old ones.  An old ugly  Yamaha that probably sounded ok with a
Yamaha hammer when it was new, may  very well sound better with a softer
Wurzen hammer now that it's older and  responding differently and tends
to support my point.  The evidence is  at least empirical whatever the
science may or may not convince you  of.  While a medium hammer may give
the most flexibility to go either  way on many pianos, there will be
cases where hammers which fall at one end  of the spectrum or the other
will be the better fit. 

As far as how  long a hammer will last, unlacquered versus lacquered; the
issue seems to  be how much lacquer and how it is applied.  A weak
stiffening solution  probably doesn't do much to effect the life of the
hammer.  But since  lacquer gets harder and more brittle over time, a
heavily lacquered hammer  will not last in terms of controllability as
long as an unlacquered hammer,  assuming it hasn't been needled to death.


David  Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net 


 

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