[CAUT] Getting lacquer out of hammers - follow up

[Chris Solliday]

Israel,
I recommend the recently posted, by David Stanwood, Bill Garlick technique
of dropping the preferred solution onto the sides of the hammer starting at
the underfelt point and working your way "up" to the crown. First one side
and then the other while its still wet. Go all the way to the crown in the
high treble, tapered to less and perhaps reapplied after listening later.
Let dry in the normal position with hammers and stack in the upright
position. I let them cure for three days before doing any other voicing and
even that with an eye to the changing that goes on for the first thirty days
until the lacquer is fully cured. I find this gives the most bloom with an
appropriate bang and a good dynamic range overall. Of course then there is
some needling to be done. I hope that this is some help.
Chris Solliday
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Israel Stein" <custos3 at comcast.net>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 11:14 AM
Subject: [CAUT] Getting lacquer out of hammers - follow up


> Hello again,
>
> For all of you who are claiming success with the pre-hardened Steinway
> hammers - how many of you have had success with them on a top-quality
> concert hall stage instrument? Which is the situation we found ourselves
> in her at SF State. I have used those hammers before also, with good -
> even excellent - results. In less demanding situations. But when it came
> to the very demanding concert hall use - the hammers, as delivered, fell
> short. They never delivered the volume that this instrument is capable
> of - pianists complained that it took too much work to get the volume
> they needed, and nothing we did could improve that. Flushing the
> hardener and starting over gave much more satisfactory results - both in
> terms of volume and tone color. Which tells me that having full control
> of the hardening process may work better than depending on what they do
> in the factory. Of course, there is always the possibility that this set
> of hammers is an exception - that for some reason it was overhardened at
> the factory. I still prefer, in the future, to put the lacquer where I
> want it if i need to use Steinway hammers and not depend on the
> factory's alleged 30-second soaking. As long as Steinway makes
> un-hardened hammers available - which I believe they do.
>
> Israel Stein