I have no experience voicing with Del's boards, but I do have experience voicing with Ron Nossaman's boards. I have experience voicing with various hammers, including Yamaha, Abel, Renner, Steinway, Ronsen Bacon, Ronsen Wurzen... Yamaha, Abel and Renner are clearly the type of hammer that simply needs to be needled down. However, my experience is that NY Steinway and all Ronsen hammers, being American hammers, may need initial lacquer to one extent or another. I understand my experience may be at odds with the experience of others (perhaps including Ron N), but I have failed to get a good sound from Bacons or Wurzens without lacquer. I have tried. I think you are in an excellent position to try some lacquer in the Bacons since you are already considering removing them; if the results are no good, you can move on to the Naturals or Wurzens. (Although, as I say, the Wurzens I have known needed lacquer, so perhaps Naturals would be the better choice.) As for technique, if you are familiar with Chris Robinson's practice of lacquering only one side of the crown at a time, so much the better. I would keep my lacquer dilute, and start by putting a layer of lacquer only on the speaking length (distal) side of the crown, leaving the front duplex side free of lacquer. No soaking the entire hammer. Try it. If it's awful, then say so, here. But perhaps, if the lacquer is dilute enough, you can get the heft you want out of these hammers after all, and still be able to remove any lacquer sound by shallow needling on the top of the crown. All the best, Kent Swafford On Jun 28, 2010, at 1:27 PM, McCoy, Alan wrote: > His suggestions were Ronsen Wurzen or Abel Naturals. These Bacons do have a some lacquer in the top octave but that’s it. I have added lead to the hammers to get to a #9 (top med) SW. I have been very hesitant to add lacquer to the hammers because when I first put the board in I had the old action still intact so I knew from listening to these older hammers with the new board that lacquer is not what the board needs. But I do think more heft might help. I will try the clip trick on the shanks to give it a test. The boom issue is really most noticeable in the mid-range. The bass, though different than a stock bass in that it doesn’t have the growly edge, is good. Octaves 6 and 7 are well within the normal range of expectations. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100628/cbcec3b4/attachment.htm>
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