[pianotech] hammers or strings?

[David Love]

I don't know, I have a string breaker, he's always been a string breaker and
he breaks new strings as well as old ones.  Recently I put a set of Ronsen
Bacon hammers on the piano (7' Baldwin) and left them pretty unlacquered
(couldn't get away with nothing in there) and raised the hammer line.  We'll
see what happens.  

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of erwinspiano at aol.com
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 7:37 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] hammers or strings?

 

Usually it's a combination of things. But the end result is wire fatigue. We
see this with many pianos that the hammers are to hard and the player is
strong and able,often insensitive to the thrashing he/she is giving the
piano. I'd sting it with Mapes Gold,file the capo. Denser pressed hammers
with a really dense core or overly hardened Stwy hammers will both pop
stings like popcorn. If it were me I'd install one of Ronsens many good
offerings. Probably Weickert or Bacon Felt. I would avoid using the denser
variety's of hammers in this case.

   I have a church with a Baldwin 6ft. 3" we rebuilt years ago. Imadgawa
hammers and Issac bass strings. They had a guy that could pop bass strings
at will. They started giving him the bill and he protested so they banned
him from the piano. Done deal! 

  We installed A new set of GC bass strings and Ronsen hammers and the
problems never came back and the piano sounds really quite good. 

  Dale Erwin

 

When you have a string breaker, there is nothing to do but replace the capo 
section strings every few years.  Check the capo profile it may or may not
be 
the problem.  The capo is where all the sharp bending occurs when it's
played 
that hard.
 
dp
 
David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu
 
 
       I have a customer with 5 grands and he is a stringbreaker.  Most 
of his grands have suffered from 1-4 broken strings,
but the current problem is a Model B (1982) which is shedding strings  
in bunches....all in the upper 2 treble areas.  This
piano has its original lacquered hammers, moderately cut, and now it's 
second set of treble strings.  I did not  put the replacement
strings on it so I do not know their origin.  I always use Roslau and 
rarely in my 42 years of piano servicing have I had any
string breakage.  Certainly not to this extent.
 
      The question I face is this:  The underside of the capo bar is, in 
my opinion, too sharp a profile.  (The strings are all being
chopped off at the bar.)  Should I propose stripping the piano down to 
the agraffes, dressing the underbar with emory paper
to a more gentle curve, and restringing the top 2 sections with Roslau. 
  Or replace the hammers with new hammers, properly
shaped and properly voiced.  Or both?
                                                                         
                           Lee Morton
                                                                         
                           lee at leemortonpianos.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100111/5a44cbe5/attachment-0001.htm>