You would add weight to the hammer molding. BTW did you measure the downbearing on the bass bridge? David Love www.davidlovepianos.com -----Original Message----- From: Israel Stein <custos3 at comcast.net> Sender: caut-bounces at ptg.org Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:36:42 To: <caut at ptg.org> Reply-To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up) - filing Progress Report >Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:50:42 -0700 From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote: >One other thing you might try is adding weight. Since the upper end is fine you can quickly >and easily add binder clips to the lower end of the piano tapering the added weight into the >area where the tone is adequate. More mass in the hammer at the lower end will add some > oomph and you can easily remove them if it doesn?t work. In fact you can simply try a small > section first. >David Love David, Thanks for the suggestion. I tried the binder clips before closing up shop today - it didn't seem to make much difference... But, out of curiosity, if it did work, how and where would you add the mass permanently? In any case, we did file a bunch of felt off the shoulders to make a narrower profile in the bottom 3 1/2 octaves of the piano. We also deed two rounds of the low shoulder needling first about 10x3 pokes (improved the tone a lot) and then another 7x3 (helped some more) on the entire piano. The tone is now much bigger and fuller, with even a bit of growl in the bass (this piano never had any before) and a bit too much "clang" in the high midrange and much of the treble for my taste (but that could be easily dealt with). I listened to a graduate student play on it for a while - and the bass is now audible in context (it wasn't before) but she complained that it was hard to play there - and she found the 6th and part of the 7th octave sort of "dead". The bass still doesn't put out much more than a loud mezzo-forte, and those notes in the 6th and 7th octaves are pretty thin. I have been picking out softer notes in the midrange, tenor and bass, shoulder needling them some more - and they have been coming up to their neighbors. So I guess next time we'll try some more of the same in the bass and that problem treble - and see how much more we can needle out of those hammers before diminishing returns set in. I still think that we will need juice in the bass (but maybe not in the tenor). But I think we'll do some more selective needling and let some students play on it for another week or so before making the decision. Thank you all for all your suggestions (and offers of help, Peter). If anyone has any further ideas based on the results described above, I would be most appreciative... Israel Stein From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Israel Stein Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:48 PM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up) - filing Ted, Thanks for the information. I filed these hammers very aggressively before we got started voicing - just as you describe below. They are very "Eggy" right now. But I'll try taking some more material off the bass shoulders and see what happens... The problem here is that this is a concert hall piano and really has to project. So far all I am getting is much improved tone - but not much added "oomph". Israel >Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:18:35 -0700 "Kidwell, Ted W" <kidwellt at saclink.csus.edu> wrote: >Hi Israel, >Your predicament reminds me of the Hamburg B I just worked up this month. I hung new Hamburg hammers. I gently filed and polished them as I always do with new hammers. I found, just as you did, that starting around C3 and down the tone was just weak and unfocused. Kind of like NY hammers that need lacquering. It got dramatically worse at the break. >These hammers were kind of round and bulbous. So I did a more agressive hammer shaping to establish a more eggy shape to the hammers. I repolished and liked the results in the tenor but was still not satisfied in the bass. So I did a much more aggressive shaping, taking material mostly off the high shoulders of the bass hammers. The sound absolutely came alive and I then started in with my needling. >My client is a very sophisticated pianist and singer. He is absolutely thrilled with the sound. The only liquid assistance I supplied was on the top three notes. >So you might try this before you get out the fluids. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me. >Ted -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100728/8b6ef598/attachment-0001.htm>
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