Ken Eschete recommended Paraloid B-72 acrylic resin dissolved in alcohol. As I recall he said it was helpful to build tone without becoming "brittle" (the tone, that is).
Since I have a piano problem similar to Israel's, I've ordered some B-72 and will try it next month.
Ed S.
----- Original Message -----
From: Israel Stein
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 11:03 AM
Subject: [CAUT] collodion properties (was: Hamburg Steinway Hammer, Voicing (Up) )
Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:53:43 -0600 Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> wrote:
Israel,
Thanks for the additional thoughts and research. A few more thoughts
of my own:
One hardening substance that seems like it would be considered
"flexible" is keytop in acetone. "Keytop" is an inexact term, as
different keytops are made from different plastics, but I think we can
say they all share having more "flexibility" than lacquer.
Fred,
Thanks for mentioning this. I used keytop/acetone solutions for a long time, starting when it became "all the rage" (about 15 years ago). I eventually grew to dislike the tone color it produced, and dropped it from my repertoire. I still use it occasionally on cheap uprights when a quick boost in brightness is needed. But I dislike the "shallow bright" tone it produces - which is the way i can best describe it.
Now the standard use of this, as defined by Steinway basement guys
(Ron Coners and Eric Schandall being major sources of info) is a light
solution applied right on the crown. What does it do? Glassy is the
adjective that comes to mind, before it has been needled a bit or
scuff sanded. It appears to me that Eric Schandall - before he retired from Steinway - got a bit less enthusiastic about keytop/acetone. A few summers ago at the Steinway/Oberlin seminar, when I mentioned how I used the stuff to solve a certain problem, he told me that there are better ways - and said that he now prefers a 1:10 lacquer/acetone solution form this sort of light "right on the crown" juicing.
In any case, my impression is that this procedure is designed more to boost the brightness of the tone, rather than the "core sound", that is the volume of sound produced - which is the problem I am dealing with. This was precisely the problem with the old set of hammers - they were certainly bright enough, but you just couldn't push them past a certain point to get louder - and that point was below some pianists' justified expectations of a concert stage instrument.
Back to collodion - I am told by my experienced source that the method of juicing with collodion is is several drops put in on either side of the hammer, at the approximate mid-point between the crown and the under-felt. This suggests to me that we are stiffening the understructure of hammer itself - and not the surface that is contacting the string, and thereby working on the "core sound" rather than just the tone color. My theoretical conjecture would be that we are trying to create a stronger spring with more "kick" to it by putting a flexible stiffener in that location.
Again, thank you for your thoughts. And I'll keep you all posted when I resume work on this instrument next week. Just to sum up - so far the recommended needling and filing resulted in huge tonal improvement but not much boost in volume (there was some). Margie was trying more shoulder needling in the weak areas yesterday - and we'll see what results that yields before going on.
Have a good weekend, everyone, (next week we start tuning for fall semester start)
Israel Stein
IOW, it doesn't seem to have the sound we would expect
from a flexible substance. Of course, there is also the wild card of
the acetone re-amalgamating lacquer that had been broken by needles -
and applying pure acetone to lacquered hammers gives similar results -
so it is not clear what the pure sound of keytop is unless you apply
it to undoped felt. My experience with that (top few notes of Abels or
the like) is that it does sound relatively glassy - though I don't
seem to need to take it back down as much. I can usually apply it and
leave it, maybe apply a bit more.
With lacquer, as a relatively brittle substance, my mental model of
voicing a lacquered hammer has the coating on fibers shattering as a
needle is inserted - the fibers impacted by the needle directly, and
some of the fibers pressed against by those displaced by the needle.
Fibers not impacted by the needle remain stiff. This assumes a fairly
weak application, where it is mostly coating the fibers, not filling
in the space, not bonding the fibers together into a composite
construction.
With keytop, or another more flexible material, I picture the coating
of the fibers being less likely to break, more likely to simply move
with the fiber when the needle is inserted. I also imagine more of a
"bonding" at points where fibers cross, the material holding those
"joints" together more securely. I haven't done too much voicing of
hammers impregnated with keytop, but I have done some (following a
couple idiots), and found that the felt was "stickier" to get the
needles in than with lacquer. With lacquer, I feel a sort of
crunchiness and hear a crispy sound as the needles go in (with a
moderate amount of lacquer, that is). With keytop, I feel and hear
none of that, and it seems like I am punching a hole in somewhat gummy
substance. Of course, it might well be different with less keytop
material in the felt - I was following a definite over dosing, and
ended up flushing the hammers.
Anyway, those are some thoughts along these lines, which have led me
not to be that interested in the idea of trying flexible hardeners
myself - though delighted to learn about other people's experiences.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:16:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: tnrwim at aol.com
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Retesting (Diane)
Message-ID: <8CCFD69A3C0C5B7-1124-10AE at webmail-d004.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
-----Original Message-----
From: tannertuner <tannertuner at bellsouth.net>
To: caut <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Thu, Jul 29, 2010 4:39 am
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Retesting (Diane)
--- On Thu, 7/29/10, tnrwim at aol.com <tnrwim at aol.com> wrote:
How many piano technicians sell pianos, or at most recommend new pianos to their customers? New pianos sales right now are less than 300,000 per year, world wide.
Ooh, I didn't answer this part of the question. I think manufacturers must be completely oblivious to the reality that piano technicians are constantly recommending new pianos to their customers. I'm pretty sure the sales force doesn't realize just how important having that service force out in homes and schools is to new piano sales. Customer walks in the store, says "my tuner says I need a new piano." Salesman gets the commission, nobody ever knows the tuner said the old piano wasn't worth fixing. But an aggressive service department is by far the most important generator of new piano sales.
This statement is very true when the technician is working for a service department of a piano store. When I owned a store, I would recommend new, or better used, pianos to my customers all the time. But very seldom did a customer walk in and tell me her piano technician told her to buy a new piano.
But now that I'm an independent piano tuner, I would rather have the customer fix the piano, than tell her to buy a new one. Even though I do some work for a dealer, and I do recommend a new piano occasionally, it's not being done often enough to make a real difference.
What manufacturers are not doing is strongly encouraging their dealers to hire, and properly compensate, qualified piano technicians to prep their pianos before they leave the store. Manufacturing sales and marketing departments need to do a much better job of educating their dealers on the importnace of having all of their pianos prepped properly before they are put out for sale. Most dealers don't do that. That, by itself, will increase sales.
Wim
And we as technicians need to do more of that. I've got an action sitting here in my shop right now. The customer begged me to just fix the ones that aren't working because it was her father's piano. She talked me into taking it to the shop, but after thinking it over, it wouldn't be ethical for me to repair this piano for her. It's a 60 year old Knabe consollette FULL of plastic flanges, plastic jacks, plastic damper levers, etc. She's looking at hundreds of dollars to fix the ones that are broken now,and there is no telling how much more will break while I'm trying to fix it. At some point we technicians need to say, "look, your grandfather also treasured his old truck, but at some point it was no longer worth trying to keep up and he had to part with it. There is also a heaven for pianos." Sure, there are a few that are worth fixing, but we really need to accept at some point that some of this stuff isn't worth keeping up.
When manufacturers realize how important we are to new piano sales, I think they would get on board.
Jeff
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:00:28 -0500
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Corigliano
Message-ID: <4C51EBEC.10504 at cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Porritt, David wrote:
Has our ego
about never-using-an-ETD gotten that out of control? If you don?t have
an ETD, borrow one.
I wouldn't call it ego, but rather an unfamiliarity with the
device. I registered Tunelab97 way back when, to use for chip
tuning and casual physics prospecting in the shop. Since I use
it so seldom, it takes me a looong time to go over a piano
with it. For a seasoned and habitual ETD user, it's nothing
special, but if I was in Zeno's position I'd not much like
having to put in the time to become comfortable with it for
one concert, or just wing it one-off.
Yea yea, I know - a *REAL* professional should be able to
seamlessly accommodate any random demand no matter how aberrant.
Ron N
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:09:09 -0500
From: "Porritt, David" <dporritt at mail.smu.edu>
To: "caut at ptg.org" <caut at ptg.org>
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Corigliano
Message-ID:
<78F73DAE2483A747AD0E4A3BE57169DA41D252DC0C at SXMBXA.systems.smu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I'm just saying get the starting A (or C if that's what is familiar) and go ahead and tune it by ear but with an accurate starting point. Take the normal A set it to -50 cents, tune, and turn it off. Or have it give an audible tone at 427.47 and tune as you always do. I'd not want to guess at the starting pitch for an event like that.
dp
David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 4:00 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Corigliano
Porritt, David wrote:
Has our ego
about never-using-an-ETD gotten that out of control? If you don't have
an ETD, borrow one.
I wouldn't call it ego, but rather an unfamiliarity with the
device. I registered Tunelab97 way back when, to use for chip
tuning and casual physics prospecting in the shop. Since I use
it so seldom, it takes me a looong time to go over a piano
with it. For a seasoned and habitual ETD user, it's nothing
special, but if I was in Zeno's position I'd not much like
having to put in the time to become comfortable with it for
one concert, or just wing it one-off.
Yea yea, I know - a *REAL* professional should be able to
seamlessly accommodate any random demand no matter how aberrant.
Ron N
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:09:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bob Hull <hullfam5 at yahoo.com>
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] beginning torque
Message-ID: <403513.70371.qm at web110609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I had tried 1780 rpm as opposed to 2340 (that was the next slower choice) and
for some reason I got less torque from it. I'll try even slower since you said
you used 1250 rpm and see what that does.
Bob
----- Original Message ----
From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: caut at ptg.org
Sent: Thu, July 29, 2010 11:30:24 AM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] beginning torque
Bob Hull wrote:
For drilling pin blocks, I am re-evaluating the drill bit size and procedure
that I have been using. The last few blocks I have done were composite blocks
multi-lam with 9 mm delignit cap. I am double drilling with 1/4" then an F bit
at about 2340 spindle speed, usually yields about 160 in. lbs. for the sample
pins that I try in a scrap piece of the block. I would like to get about 180 but
I can't get that with the F bit. By the time I get coils just right, chip and
tune for a year, the torque is not as high as I would like. I have a block
in the works now (already drilled the 1/4" hole) and I am going to get a 6.5.
mm bit today and try that on a sample. I got a new drill press after my last
one seemed to have too much slop in the quill but the repair people said it was
within specs. I just got a table top delta. I am keeping the humidity in the
shop now in the low 40's. (The block itself stays in a 35 % rh environment when
not being worked on.)
What beginning torque do you like to see? How much do you expect it to drop
in the initial stages?
Hi Bob,
I drill 1/4", and 6.8mm at 1250rpm and get in the 160-170 range. A year later,
they're in the 150-160 range, or thereabouts. My old radial drill press has
plenty of quill slop, and I don't see that making a bit of difference. I don't
expect going 0.03mm smaller on the bit will make the difference you're looking
for either.
It's been a while, so I've attached a spreadsheet with data supplied by Mike
McCoy. Note that torque is material dependent to a certain minimum hole size,
and a smaller hole doesn't appreciably affect torque readings. Looks to me that
if you want more torque without losing the benefit of the composite block, you
might use Falconwood for the cap instead of Delignit.
Ron N
------------------------------
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