[CAUT] Self voicing hammers/work hardening

[Barbara Richmond]

Hey Susan,

Great advice--though you'd never have to worry about me lacquering the heck
out of hammers.  If they call me, this could turn out to be the first
time in my life I've worked on Steinway hammers that *weren't* lacquered to
death (but, I'm pretty good at working with the ones that have been!).

By the by, where do you get your shellac flakes--paint store, word working
store, internet?   I have also experienced the phenomenon of keytop/acetone
disappearing--maybe because I don't use a strong concentration and/or very
much of it, either.

Barbara Richmond


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Susan Kline" <skline@peak.org>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Self voicing hammers/work hardening


> Hi, Barbara
>
> Maybe there's an intermediate course to pursue, in between waiting years
> for playing the
> Steinway to brighten up the treble, and lacquering the heck out of it,
> which would
> make you more trouble later on, and less variety of tone.
>
> A local church bought a brand new S&S B (yes! nice donor!!), and they had
> University
> piano majors come in and practice on it. Still, the voicing was a little
> off, erratic,
> not matching well between registers. When I started looking after it, I
> filed a dab,
> gave it hard tunings, and they started playing concerts on it, concerts by
> pianists
> who (while classical and unamplified) certainly didn't hold back on
> volume. In a
> year or two, it became very pleasant indeed, and without hardeners other
> than
> whatever was put in when it arrived. Now, of course, I'm working on duplex
> zings.
>
> Perhaps your church could get people to practice Liszt (or Rachmaninoff or
> Prokofiev)
> on it, and you might use a little bit of shellac just behind the strike
> point in
> the capo areas if it still seems hopelessly fluffy. The shellac breaks
> down over
> time instead of just getting harsher and harsher -- so as the playing in
> achieves
> its aims, the shellac bows out. I would use ultra-blonde flakes dissolved
> in 190 proof
> ethyl alcohol, so that it dries very fast and the color isn't too
> obnoxious.
> A fairly dilute cut. Be sure to keep the bottle closed so that water
> doesn't
> get into it from the air. Shelf life isn't indefinite, though longer than
> the
> hardware store shellac, which I wouldn't use.
>
> Well, ... it might work? Practice with the shellac on a piano with old
> hammers? It's what I'd
> think of doing, anyway.
>
> Susan
> _______________________________________________
> caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
>