>The hammer rail cloth serves at least two purposes that I can think of. > First the elastic properties of the felt help to keep the shanks from >getting loose due to wood movement from season to season. When the flanges > I have in the past tried leaving the felt off and using sand paper instead. > Returning to the piano after six months or so I usually found the shanks >rattling on the rail with nothing left of my careful spacing job. I have >since gone back to the traditional felt. The advantages are more stable I've gone through this same sequence of procedures. I tend to agree with your theory. We may be in the minority here, but if you add S&S to our camp, I think that would tend to stack the opinion in our favor. ;-) One thing I would add though; we did a couple of rails with thicker wool cloth and no adhesive. We couldn't keep those hammer flanges in place for anything. I replaced them with a slightly thinner cloth and used spray adhesive (on the cloth, of course) and they are now very stable. This is the procedure I've settled on. Mark Mark Story, RPT Eastern Washington University | mstory@ewu.edu Cheney, Washington, USA | mark.story@phunnet.org
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