[CAUT] Kawai hammers

[Don Mannino]

Wim and others,
 
Unfortunately Kawai's production process is set up in such a way that
the factory is not willing to send us hammers pre-mounted on shanks for
regular use in our parts stock.  For this church, you should order the
shanks and hammers and install them.  I don't know if the new hammers
would fit, or if we have hammers in stock, without knowing the model
number, though.  Send me a private message with the model and serial
number and I'll let you know, Wim.
 
For College / University music schools I have been able to get the
factory to supply the pre-mounted hammers on a special order basis, with
the serial number of each piano.  If we do not give them the school name
and the piano model and serial number, the hammers never come.  With the
information it takes a month or two to get them.
 
The price BYU paid was standard.  There is minimal mark-up on most of
the parts we sell except for gray market pianos.  So if the piano is one
of ours here at Kawai America, they are sold at a low price.
 
When we are sold out of a particular model, both the Renner and Abel
hammers work well on Kawai pianos, I think.  Brooks Ltd has all of our
bore specs, and can pre-bore by model if desired.
 
Don Mannino 
  _____  

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
wimblees at aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 6:47 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Kawai hammers


Don

I have a church with a 40 year old Kawai. I gave them a bid for new
hammers. Will the new hammers work on that one, too? 


Wim

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Mannino <DMannino at kawaius.com>
To: pianowork at yahoo.com; caut at ptg.org
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 6:25 am
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Kawai hammers


Rolf,

The current RX hammers which are available are not hard to work with.
They are made somewhat similar to Renner hammers, and voice with similar
techniques.

They start hard and bright, and need plenty of low and upper shoulder
needling.

For universities we can special order the set of hammers pre-mounted
from the factory, so if you contact Me at Kawai with the serial number I
will order the set for you.  A set takes a couple months to arrive from
Japan, and it makes the hammer job much easier to complete quickly.

Jim Busby installed a few of these sets earlier this year - hopefully he
can comment on the voicing process and how they are sounding after some
use.

Don Mannino
dmannino at kawaius.com

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org
<mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org?> ] On Behalf Of
Rolf Von Walthausen
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 4:39 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Kawai hammers

Hello everyone:

I have a piano faculty client with a KG-2A who needs a new set of
hammers and would like me to use replacement Kawai hammers.  I've never
worked with these before and so would like to hear your experiences and
any advice for getting these hammers to sound their best.  


Thanks for your help, and Eric good luck with all those Steinways at
CCM.  


Rolf von Walthausen
former CCM piano technician
retired from institutional work & still kicking in the north woods...

 


      



  _____  

Traveling over the river or through the woods this holiday season? Get
the MapQuest Toolbar
<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212816426x1200798402/aol?redir
=http://www.mapquest.com/toolbar?ncid=emlwemqmq00000001> . Directions,
Traffic, Gas Prices & More! 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081126/7f7d2779/attachment-0001.html>