<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ccccff"> It is natural to compare and contrast the Crescendo punchings made from Wurzen felt to the the woven felt cloth traditionally used in pianos.  How DOES woven felt really stand up in high impact areas?  Let's take a look: Am I the only technician who has a problem setting let off in older pianos because the woven cloth let off button punchings are dimpled, and when you turn the button slightly, the jack tender contacts a different spot on the uneven punching, and everything changes? How about front rail punchings?  Am I the only technician who has encountered woven cloth front rail punchings so deformed under the sharps that if I adjust the key dip and fail to replace the punching inexactly the same orientation as it originally was, my adjustment is all over the map?  I'll answer that question by saying that many technicians in the know regularly flip the front rail punchings over and turn them, to slow down and spread out the inevitable compaction. What about the highest impact area in the whole piano?  Do we see a woven felt? Any woven felt hammers out there? The point I am making is that all our experience shows that woven felt is, in fact, not immune at all to compaction.  It compacts very nicely, which is one of the reasons we regulate, regulate, regulate, and eventually replace it. The special felt from the Wurzen company is truly amazing stuff.  Because its density is achieved by fulling (agitation, pounding, rolling) the fibre layers and not by pressing them, the resultant felt has a resilience (spring back) not attainable in pressed felts. Jack Brand, owner of Wurzen, said I should immerse some of his felt in water and see what happens.  Well, I have had a piece of  a Crescendo punching in a glass of water for a few days.  I look at it, and it looks.....wet.  That's all, no swelling, no disintegration.  Just a piece of felt with sharp corners where I cut it, except it is soaking wet.  A neat, if somewhat boring science experiment!   Not that a piano would be subjected to such conditions, but it does say a lot about the stability of this felt. Look out, woven felt cloths, and get ready to move on over.  Crescendo Wurzen felt is coming. Jurgen Goering Piano Forte Supply "we've got the good stuff" </body> </html>