Tension hammers

[Ric Brekne]

I cant speak directly to Ronsen Wurzens... except by way of what I hear
techs who use them say. These are hammers that by and large need little
needling and rather need a bit of juice to pump up da volume as the
saying goes.  In Europe, Wurzens made by Renner can be had to just about
whatever tension specs you are able to get Renner to press them for
you.  Andre has gone through a long process with them and has arrived at
a basic press tension spec he likes.  I get a lot of my hammers through
him because he seems to have it nailed. These hammers benifit greatly
from about 20-30 three needle deep stabs up and down the shoulders and
this is exceedingly easy to accomplish.  The extremes however need
almost no needling and rather need tiny bit of hardner.

As for the imagery described below by your Yamaha teacher...  its a nice
picture.  I liked the idea of optimizing the attack curve with the
sustain/bloom curve.  A nice graph they showed at the Academy in Hamamatsu.

Cheers
RicB

List,

We know on most hammers we need to open up the lower shoulders to open
up the tone.   At Yamaha one of the teachers called it bringing the tone
above the strings.   That really opened my ears as I heard happen.
Question.   Is Ronsen Wurzen, Steinway hammers...so-called low heat
pressed hammers not need this opening up of the shoulders as much?
Maybe some explanations and examples of tension hammers...

David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA 94044