One small binder clip weighs about .6 grams. If you place it in the middle
of the shank that's only adding .3 grams to the SW. Not enough to matter.
Two of them will not add more than 1 gram to the SW (since you can't put
both of them at the very end). That's easily added in the form of lead
solder to the hammer molding Stanwood style. However, there really isn't a
reason why you can't just leave them there. They don't move around. I
would have tried adding three or four (or more) of them to the bass section
adding closer to 2 grams to the SW. The big ones don't grip the shank well
enough to not move around. Of course if that was the problem you would have
to compensate by adding some lead to the keys otherwise your touchweight
would be a bit too high. But as I mentioned, it sounds like you would only
need to add a significant number of them in the lower part of the piano and
graduate them until they disappeared entirely wherever that was appropriate
in the scale.
The downbearing occurred to me as it could be a choked thing from the bass
bridge being tied down. Since that's a ring bridge if the bass bridge is
tied down so might be the low tenor. Worth looking at I thought. Also, it
could simply be that they didn't thin the panel on this one enough (or at
all) making the low end of the panel simply too thick and stiff to speak.
I'd be curious to run a small drill through the panel from underneath and
measure the thickness of the panel.
BTW, the reason they like that one best is because it says "Hamburg".
David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Israel
Stein
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 3:48 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up) - bass bridge
downbearing
Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:05:30 +0000 "David Love"
<mailto:davidlovepianos at comcast.net> <davidlovepianos at comcast.net> wrote:
You would add weight to the hammer molding.
What would you use for weights, to approximate the weight of those binder
clips?
BTW did you measure the downbearing on the bass bridge?
This aroused my curiosity. I'm not scheduled to be back at SFSU until next
Monday - but I had a couple tuning in Daly City this morning, so I stopped
by school to measure downbearing. Seems to be normal - pretty much
equivalent to what we have on our two New York stage D's, which are both
pretty solid in the bass. One of them I would even call a "powerhouse"
bass... (I don't know why most people here at SFSU think that the Hamburg is
"the best piano". Always has been pretty problematic as far as I am
concerned - and apparently for my predecessors also. It's one of the worst
Hamburg Steinways I ever came across. They must like it because it's
shiny... The house accompanist and a few of the students absolutely hate it,
so I am not imagining things... )
Israel Stein
-----Original Message-----
From: Israel Stein <mailto:custos3 at comcast.net> <custos3 at comcast.net>
Sender: caut-bounces at ptg.org
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:36:42
To: <mailto:caut at ptg.org> <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"
<mailto:davidlovepianos at comcast.net> <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"
<mailto:kidwellt at saclink.csus.edu> <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
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