I meant to add the obvious, that the hammer head demonstrates significant bias as to its best orientation. Given that its largest concentrations of tension and compression exist directly at the crown, and that directly under the crown is a driving spike of wood, off-center hammer strikes utilize the hammer less effectively than on-center. As Ed points out, "energy is most efficiently transferred at 90 degrees", but it is the axial orientation and construction of the hammer head itself that contributes more or less to power rather than degrees on one side or the other. Said another way, if the hammer was mostly round, with a big round inner molding, several degrees off center will not matter much. Given we have a rather pointed hammer head with a sharp and slender molding, off-center strikes by the same degree would cause a notable lack of power. Nick Gravagne, RPT Piano Technicians Guild Member Society Manufacturing Engineers Voice Mail 928-476-4143 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100209/f0c61b20/attachment.htm>
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