Hello, all Some months ago I posted an inquiry about rescuing over-lacquered hammers by rinsing out the lacquer and starting all over. The piano is a New York Steinway D that has been one of our primary performance pianos - until we put a set of the pre-lacquered Steinway hammers that they ship these days. The voicing never went well, and the piano was relegated to jazz and pop combo performances and occasional accompaniment use all of last year. Before those old hammers wore out, this piano was first choice for recitals of many students and some faculty pianists (solo and accompaniment) and was preferred as the solo instrument with orchestra (we also have a Hamburg D and an older New York D) After the end of classes, Margie Williams (the other technician here, who doesn't subscribe to lists) followed some of the suggestions we got from this list and subjected the hammers to several successive rinses, following suggestions made by Fred Sturm and Horace Greely. She used both lacquer thinner and acetone rinses, since it turns out that what Steinway puts in those hammers really is not lacquer but some sort of quick-setting plastic concoction. Margie and I collaborate on the voicing. The results so far have been very good. The hammers came to life with a relatively light lacquering after the rinse - and are producing a much bigger and richer sound than they ever did before, even in the treble - which never produced much sound with those pre-lacquered (or pre-plasticked?) hammers. There are no classes or performances now, so we are letting selected students (who are ambitious enough to come practice in the summer) play this piano while we work to refine the voicing. So far the response has been positive. There is a good chance that by the time performance season starts the piano will approximate its old self with these new hammers. We'll see... Many thanks to Fred and Horace and to all who responded. And, after this experience, I am staying away from those pre-whatevered hammers. Israel Stein, RPT Piano Technician II Creative Arts Technical Services College of Creative Arts San Francisco State University
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