hammer travel

[David Ilvedson]

The important thing is the spacing on either side of the hammer.   If one side is getting squished or compressed the hammers is traveling in that direction and needs traveling.   I remember a hammer hanging class by Pris Rappaport years ago where she purposely put traveling paper under one flange on each hanging jig.  Once hammers were hung, we removed the traveling paper and she showed us the burning in technique.   She demonstrated the same thing in LA last year or so.  Specifically mentioning the squeezing of space on one side of the hammer.   She does not travel the shanks except for some really out there ones.   I, personally, think traveling the shanks makes sense before hanging the hammers.   The angled hammers hung at strike point, perfectly at 90 degrees will naturally take on a cant when at rest.  

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA 94044





Original message
From: ed440 at mindspring.com
To: "Pianotech List" 
Received: 9/19/2006 6:05:58 AM
Subject: Re: hammer travel


Tapered hammers can give the illusion of traveling horizontally when you play them one at a time.  Change the rake and you change the illusion.  Get the hammer straight up, and you stop the "travel" and maybe get a better hammer/string allignment.
Ed S.



-----Original Message----- 
From: Farrell 
Sent: Sep 19, 2006 8:28 AM 
To: Pianotech List 
Subject: Re: hammer travel 


Maybe I'm missing something here - and maybe I'm just going to show off some of my ignorance - hanging hammers is not my expertise - but how will bending the shank affect hammer travel? Seems to me if a hammer travel has a horizontal component (you don't want any - all movement should be vertical) during its travel through its arc, the solution is to travel the hammer/shank/flange by inserting the appropriate thickness of traveling paper under the flange (in this case on the bass side of the flange screw). If you bend the shank, yes you can move the hammer over one way or another, but it will still have a horizontal travel component.
 
Yes?
 
Terry Farrell
----- Original Message ----- 
 
A few days ago I had an interesting experience with a Baldwin D Concert Grand.   New Ronsen Wurzens and shanks/flanges(not sure what the brand was).  I had noticed lately that the hammers were traveling towards the bass, i.e. depress the key and the space on the bass side of the moving hammer and its neighbor was compressing.   I went through and started at the first tenor burning it in.  That is heating the shank with an Ungar heat gun and twisting the hammer towards the direction of compression or in the instance the bass.   I then spaced the hammer back between its neighbors and check it again.   When it was right, I immediately noticed the tone of the hammer was blooming...opening up...I did have to fit the hammer to the string which fixed some buzzing sounds.   I was really able to hear this difference because I still had an original hammer one note up.  ! ; 
 
This is a really important part of hanging hammers.   Travel the shanks first, hang the hammers, then travel the hammers with a heat gun.   Yamaha Concert Services said the same thing...big part of voicing the hammers...
 
There are a number of hammer hanging articles PTG sells in a combilation, for instance Cliff Gears and Steve Brady which expond on this...

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA 94044
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