M&H Hammers

[Ron Nossaman]

I tuned a Mason & Hamlin B today and noticed a couple of interesting things.
Measuring from the hammer strike line, the tenor/treble string fan angles
went from 77 degrees in the low tenor, to 96 degrees in the treble. I
haven't noticed a lot of high treble angles past 90 degrees, so it caught my
eye. Is this that uncommon, or have I just not been paying attention?
Whichever the case, it was really the hammer angles that impressed me. The
entire tenor/treble hammer set was drilled to match the 77 degrees of the
low tenor. That made #88 19 degrees off from the string angle! Since, I
assume, that screwed up the strike point enough on those short segments to
be a problem, they gang filed the whole treble section of hammers to square
up the strike points. It was obviously a manufacturing expedient (read
quicker and therefor CHEAPER) to drill the whole tenor/treble set of hammers
the same, but why didn't they just make them all 90 degrees to more nearly
accommodate the treble? They would have been 13 degrees off in the low
tenor, and not had to file the treble to square up the strike point. Is
there a reason they favored the tenor angle match over the treble that I
don't know about? I thought it was kind of weird.

 Ron N