[CAUT] S&S Hammers and lacquer

[Fred Sturm]

On Sep 20, 2007, at 5:58 PM, Douglas Wood wrote:

> I keep hearing contradictory things about the nearly-mythical '20's  
> Steinway piano hammers, particularly regarding the use of lacquer.  
> Many independent technicians are convinced that they do not contain  
> lacquer, or at least very little. This does not seem to agree with  
> my experience. And I have asked at least 6 different, very  
> knowledgeable, senior technicians employed by Steinway about it,  
> and they all have agreed that to their knowledge, every Model D  
> Steinway ever issued from the factory (NY) has had lacquer (or its  
> precursor) in all 88 hammers. This includes Joe Bisceglie, who  
> probably had the earliest involvement with the company.
>
> So, can any of you provide hard evidence of a factory hammer in a D  
> without? I'd really like to know.
>
> This relates to my earlier post about the hammers being, actually,  
> a composite. And the suggestion that Steinway developed its hammer,  
> and its tone, including lacquer (or its precursor) as an essential  
> element. I'd guess that most of you don't hold particularly to the  
> purist notion that a no-lacquer hammer is by its very nature  
> superior to a lacquered one--that we somehow should apologize for  
> needing to use such awful stuff, or whatever. But this myth that in  
> the golden days of piano manufacture the hammers were so great that  
> lacquer wasn't necessary does the industry a large disservice.
>
> Doug Wood
	Hmm, hammers from a D from the 20s. Unfortunately hammers on Ds  
almost always get replaced fairly often, so I doubt many of us have  
ever run across such things. (The Paderewski is probably pretty  
unique in that regard, though there are probably other examples  
squirreled away somewhere). From the other models, though, I agree  
with many other techs that those I have replaced never had any  
evidence I could see of lacquer or other hardener (not counting low  
shoulders). I have felt them thoroughly, cut them apart, probed them,  
to see what I could find. Nothing.
	I think some of the factory lore may be over-stated. Yes, I suspect  
in the basement they used shellac in voicing early on, maybe even in  
the late 1800s. But they probably did so the way Bechstein does  
today: as needed, a little on the crown (Werner Albrecht said in his  
voicing class in KC a light solution of sanding sealer, just a touch  
as needed if nothing else works). IOW, this was a way of adapting a  
piano, not a manufacturing technique.
	The soaking of hammers in lacquer, best I can figure out from what I  
have heard in conversations with a fair number of people over the  
years, is a Ron Coners invention, starting maybe in the mid 80s. I  
certainly remember very vividly that all the old Steinway instructors  
(including George Defebaugh and Fred Drasche) said one was to apply  
it to the shoulders and never let it reach the crown, except maybe  
the top few notes.
	I tried to pump Franz Mohr recently, when he was here giving a  
technical for our chapter (on a tour promoting Steinway and his  
book). He's a hard person to pump <G>, always going off on a tangent.  
But by various devious means, I found that he wasn't instructed at  
all in the use of lacquer when he was hired and put in charge of the  
basement (partly this was the person he replaced making it hard for  
him, keeping the "secrets" from him). And that he considered that the  
need for lacquer was because the hammers were bad, that they just  
weren't able to make good hammers at that time. He was trained at the  
Ibach factory after WWII, and came to NYC, I think, in the 60s. So he  
was not "born and brought up" in the Steinway factory like some, but  
in a way that makes him a more accurate witness.
	At any rate, the history is murky at best. Current practice is well  
documented and well presented to the public, in contrast to earlier  
tendencies toward secrecy. And this is a very good thing. But I think  
the whole thing has evolved slowly, like the progress to heavier  
scaling and heavier hammers, along with lower leverage ratio. And a  
lot of it (current use of lacquer) has to do with efficiency and  
ability to change the character of the piano to meet demands of the  
artist. It is a lot faster to lacquer and needle down a set of  
Steinway or similar hammers than to take a set of hard pressed  
hammers through the whole process of needling. Easier on the  
forearms, too <G>. And much easier to reverse and bring back up if  
you are too "mushy" or however you want to put it.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu