[CAUT] Individual replacement hammers (Renner)

[maxpiano]

Phil,

Neither have I, (yet to meet a hammer that won't cooperate) and I have glued 
back the felt on #1 hammers on cheaper pianos many times over the years. 
This piano has real fat hammers with real hard Renner warm-pressed felt.  It 
barely moves when I hand squeeze as hard as I can.  My judgment is that if I 
apply the necessary pressure just with vice grips and clamps I will likely 
just mess it up and break the molding in the process.  The underfelt comes 
so far down that there's not much gluing surface for the outer felt, and I 
doubt that the best CA will hold it.

The piano is only about a 5' 7" grand, and the tone is not that great on A0 
and A#0.  The difference in tone from the spreading hammers is barely 
discernable at this point.  If push comes to shove, I could install 
temporarily a couple of usable Steinway hammers (used) in my grab bag, but 
I'd like to do better.

The lowest hammer is numbered 3 -- I wonder if I could get Schimmel to send 
me numbers 1 and 2?  I'll bet the installers in the Schimmel factory 
recognized that the hammers were too fat and chose the lightest ones they 
could!

Bill Maxim

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Bondi" <phil at philbondi.com>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 7:43 AM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Individual replacement hammers (Renner)


> Bill, what's your method of clamping? I have yet to meet a hammer that 
> wouldn't cooperate.
>
> -Phil