Hammers

[Tony Caught]

Hi Newton,

I will have to buy a scanner so that I can send you some photo's of what
happens in the tropics.

So for I have replaced the hammers on no less than 8 Yamaha pianos, under
warranty (pianos less than ten year old) because the hammer felts have
lifted.  These pianos models are C108, LU 110 and LU201. Yamaha agrees that
if the hammers are subject to this happening in areas of extreme humidity
and replaces them without any hassles. They also stopped importing these not
tropical pianos into Australia because of this and other related humidity
problems.

I don't know what type of glue they use but in this day of cost cutting I
would not be surprised if this glue also failed. Be it water penetration
into the glue or the extra tension put on by swollen felts or a combination
of both.

to me it seems that for every cycle a piano goes through in season changes
the piano (wood and felt) retains more moisture every year. An example is
that a new piano will have 2 tight centres in the first year, 8 in the
second and then 30 in the third. If they don't buy a Dampp-Chaser be this
time I tell them that I will have to recentre the entire piano.

Regards

Tony Caught ICPTG
Australia
caute@optusnet.com.au

----- Original Message -----
From: Newton Hunt <nhunt@jagat.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: Hammers


> Humidity exasperates the situation but generally it is glue
> failure and mostly on inferior hammers but not always.
> Sometimes mistreated felt itself can fail if over heated in
> the cauls.  Modern glues penetrate the wood and the felt and
> almost never fail.
> --
> Newton Hunt
> Highland Park, NJ
> mailto:nhunt@jagat.com