<HTML>Ilex, I certainly wouldn't put myself in the same league as Andre, Isaac, or D= ale, but I do feel I have something to contribute here. From personal experience with many, many Kawais, I will say that yes, th= ey all tend to sound very soft at the beginning.  And I have seen ten y= ear old Kawais(GE1s and 2s, similar quality to the GE20, older models) that = started out that way as well, but have become really strident sounding over = time.  I have had many requests to voice them waaaay down.  The ha= mmers end up compacting substantially--especially the one in the Russian pia= no teacher's music school that gets played 4 hours a day by her advanced stu= dents.   I guarantee you, if the  piano gets played a reasonable amount, the= hammers will harden to the point that you'll need to needle them on a fairl= y regular basis. I would avoid putting any hardener on them.  Time is the best harde= ner of all. Dave Stahl In a message dated 8/14/04 10:44:34 AM Pacific Daylight Time, i1ex@earth= link.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">greetings! YES those who are easily exasperrated by newbies can skip this if necess= ary. but up until now i've successfully avoided lacquering hammers and manage= d to brighten everything via fine-filing and ironing hammers. a good chunk of= my experience and schooling has been on asian pianos that rarely if ever ne= eded brightening anyway. however, i have a customer who just bought a kawai g= e-20 and wants it to sound like a pearl river - ?!???!? so, i'm heading into = the realm of lacquering hammers. what are some tips and things to avoid? wha= t brands/types do you recommend for lacquer/thinner? btw, this is a last-minute service request, so i need to be able to get my supplies locally, at a hardware store or wherever. sorry if this is a repeat question and i'm showing my newbie hide here; = i really have tried searching the ptg website for any archives or articles= and it's not so friendly in that sense. or i'm an idiot - completely possibl= e! thanks in advance for the help!</BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>