[CAUT] Shellac Voicing

[Paul T Williams]

I'm with you, Ed,

As a matter of fact, I'm finding the Naturals I've installed (now about 10 
or so here at UNL), that they are getting brighter with play.  I'm going 
to be doing some "sugar-coating" needles soon.  I can't believe that these 
hammers need any juice of any kind. After hearing the beautiful D's and 
B's in the Steinway factory "pick your favorite and take it home" room, 
last week, that I've been leaving them too bright.  There are ways to keep 
the power and maintain a certain mellowness on soft play. Ask Wally Brooks 
if you all need some voicing tips on these great hammers!  Better yet, 
hire him for the all day seminar he offers!  Well worth the investment...

BTW...If you all are able to, attend these great seminars at the Steinway 
factory!  Steinway treats you very well!! :>). I'm also now confident with 
the new Steinway hammers that I'll be trying some soon.  (Don't worry 
Wally, I'll use yours as well!)

Happy Turkey-day!

Paul




From:
"Ed  Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com>
To:
<caut at ptg.org>
Date:
11/25/2009 03:01 PM
Subject:
Re: [CAUT] Shellac Voicing



As it happened, I saw this piano today.
I really don't recommend chemical hardening of Abel Natural hammers.
The Naturals in their original state had a much wider range of timbre, and 

could be played very loud without clanging or breaking up the sound.
Ed Sutton


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Shellac Voicing


> FWIW, only once have I added shellac to a set of Abel Natural hammers, 
and 
> it was on the insistence of the customer.
>
> The piano was a 1920's S & S M, original soundboard, showing some 
weakness 
> in the first capo section. My preference was to leave the hammers alone, 

> but the owner wanted more bang in octaves 5 and 6, so finally I agreed 
to 
> harden that area. I put in thin shellac, and then used pure alcohol to 
> flush it away from the surface.
>
> Again, I would have prefered leaving it alone, but after 6 months and 
many 
> voicing adjustments the customer was still very unhappy, so I agreed to 
> harden the treble hammers.
>
> Ed S.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dan Rembold" <d_rembold at yahoo.com>
> To: <caut at ptg.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 9:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] Shellac Voicing
>
>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Abel Naturals are an excellent choice for a replacement hammer, but no 
my 
> part I have not yet had to add power to a new set; quite the contrary.
>
> I'm just wondering, are there just a few notes that sound like they need 

> to be brought up, or the entire piano?  What brand of piano is it, and 
how 
> old? On the last Hamburg Steinway O that I used the Abels on, I found 
that 
> once I needled down the sections that had extra noise, the entire piano 
> had more power.  My guess is that more power was going into tone 
> production, less into unwanted noise.  No hardening was needed in that 
> case.
>
> Also, on your premise that lacquer continues to harden over the life of 
> the hammer, I would tend to disagree.  The apparent continuing hardness 
> must be coming from something else, since lacquer doesn't harden over 
> time.  I've been spraying nitrocellulose off and on for 30 years, and I 
> can still make an impress into lacquer finishes I did years ago, with 
just 
> a thumbnail.  I may be off by transferring that idea to hammers, but 
> that's my observation.
>
> No matter what you choose to use--shellac, lacquer or 
acetone-based--where 
> you place the solution into the hammer will have the most effect on 
tone. 
> If you do use shellac, the off-the-shelf prepackaged kind is never 
> consistent--you can get flakes from woodworker.com pretty reasonable. 
The 
> dedicated shellac thinner is probably best too, since paint-store 
> varieties of denatured alcohol are all various blends of kerosene, 
naptha, 
> gasoline, and who knows what else.
>
> Let us know how it works out.
> Dan Rembold
> Auburn University
>
> 



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091125/2e368838/attachment-0001.htm>