[CAUT] Hammers

[Ric Brekne]

I have to agree with David Loves point about it not being just about the 
hammers themselves.  Depending on the piano you may be better off with a 
harder or softer starting point. 

That said.  I use exclusively Renner Wurzen IIs, which is their premium 
quality version of hammers using Wurzen felt.  I find that it is very 
easy to voice down if needed, and that there is ample power built into 
the hammers for almost any situation.  Sometimes in the extremes of the 
bass and treble registers I need to add a bit of hardner.  Don Mannino 
was right enough about these hammers matching my voicing preferences. 
Tho that said I found it interesting that he noted that Wurzens win out 
in rough opinion polls.

Funny this came up as I've been meaning to write a post on hammers.  I 
just replaced a set on a Hamburg C with origional non prevoiced S&S 
hammers and shanks.  They were quite nice really but the bore length was 
a bit different in spots then the ones that came with the piano.  In 
particular the bass hammers were about 1.5 mm longer out.  Made for a 
nice job mating hammers to strings... but it all came out ok in the 
end.  I had to use a couple drops of Collidion (sp?) in the whole bass 
section interestingly enough to get enough uhmmf compared to the rest of 
the instrument.   I havent installed a set of pre-glued in a very long 
time and all in all... I think it will be a long time again before I 
repeat the process.  I just like being more in control then pre-glueds 
allow for... besides... I make more money that way !

Cheers

RicB