[CAUT] Hamilton hammers

wbis290 wbis290 at aol.com
Fri Apr 9 18:18:03 MDT 2010


Hi Paul,

I think that the advise that was given to go Ronsen is great advise. The Ronsens that I have used do give a nice tone without being harsh. If they would happen to still be too loud I would be tempted to do something that I have tried with very good success on hammers that were very hard and when voiced would return to their harshness quickly. I will probably be crucified by some for this suggestion but I don't care, I tried it on Baldwin Hamiltons and it works. Try a little Profelt on or near the striking point. Use a few drops and see what happens. It will take an hour or so before you will see the results. One of the universities that I work for has Hamiltons in small practice rooms and have been a pain to try to get sounding like a piano. No matter what was done, even steaming, the hammers would eventually come back to their hard old self again. We are finally getting rid of the Hamiltons with Yamahas so there is no reason to put money into them. Out of desperation I tried
  the Profelt and have had great results. It's fast and easy. Some of the students have complained that the Yamaha's are too loud. I tried the Profelt on them and have had great results. Would I use the Profelt every time that I needed to tone down a piano? No way. Is it something that can be used when nothing else seems to work? Sure. But, be careful, you can over do it and then you have a whole different problem of getting the hammers hardened up again and have to start over all over.Try it on one of the Hamiltons that is not getting new hammers now and see how you like it.

God bless

Bill Balmer, RPT
Ohio Northern University and the University of Findlay



In a message dated 04/09/10 12:04:27 US Eastern Standard Time, dempsey at marshall.edu writes:
All, 

WE have a number of Baldwin Hamilton's c.1968 that live in very small, very loud practice rooms. 

A small $$ windfall is going to allow me to re-hammer some of these. When new, the hammers were rock hard and defied even the most heroic voicing attempts, so I want to make sure that I install something moderately soft to start with this time. 

Again, the rooms are small, with block wall construction, tile floors, etc. 

Suggestions welcome. 


Paul E. Dempsey, RPT 
Piano Technician Sr. 
Marshall University 
Huntington, WV 
304-696-5418 
304-617-1149 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100409/6ef39397/attachment.htm>


More information about the CAUT mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC