Czech, please

[Richard Brekne]

These hammers do actually respond well to two voicing treatments I know 
of.  One is repeated moderate needling... over several visits... not 
very economical but it does work very well.  The other is to simply soak 
them in alcohol / water  5:1 roughly and puff them up like mush balls... 
reshape and treat them as if they were hammers made for lacquer.

The worst thing that can happen to the sound of a Petrof is for it to 
become glassy bright... ice...... despite that... mushing down the 
hammers with a one time very aggressive needling session just kills the 
tone once and you may find it very hard to build back up any dynamic 
range. 

I did replace a set of hammers with some AA Wurzen felt moderately 
pressed on a 220.... came out really nice and held up quite well despite 
15 + hours of use weekly for over a year.  Its pretty bright again now.

Cheers
RicB



         > I attended a seminar at Geneva a few years ago.  They
        recognized that
         > the Petrof hammers were too hard (petrofied??), and were
        fitting the new
         > models with a softer variety.  This was back in 2005.  I'm
        not sure
         > what's happened since then.
         >     Paul McCloud


    This one's brand spankin', plenty bright to start with, and
    brightened up considerably in the few months he's had it. The
    sad part is that he bought the piano in the first place
    because it wasn't as clangy bright as everything else he'd
    looked at. I finally got enough felt pried loose to make them
    tolerable, but the hammers didn't respond well to needles.

    Ron N