traveling

[larudee@pacbell.net]

Sorry, I've been at the CA convention the last few days and just got back.  Avery's
description agrees with what I recall from Pris's class, and I did not mean to
imply that the method ever includes putting new hammers on old shanks, if that is
what anyone understood.

However, the method involves reference to the "space" swept out by the hammer as it
moves between the hammers on either side.  This means that there are hammers on
either side to start with.  They can either be old hammers or new hammers.  If they
are new hammers, they cannot both be glued hammers because there would have been no
reference to orient them, so at least one of them would have to have been dry
hung.  The only other choice is to use the old hammers for reference.  In Pris's
class all the parts were new, although the end hammers of each section were somehow
prehung for reference, perhaps intended to represent old hammers.

The more I think about it, the more I think Avery is right that Pris's method did
not involve using the every-other-hammer method.  However, I'm pretty sure we dry
hung the hammers and then glued them using the previously glued hammer and the
following dry hung hammer for reference.

It's actually a very efficient method that makes few demands in the way of jigs,
measurements, sightlines, etc., and gets the parts squared and aligned very nicely
except for the final hammer-string alignment.  It may sound counterintuitive and
complicated on paper, but if you ever try it (as in taking Pris's class), it
provokes a "Eureka!" because of its ease, simplicity and coolness.

Paul S. Larudee

Avery Todd wrote:

> Paul and others,
>
> OK. I'm going to attempt this. I've known Pris & Joel for 20 yrs. or so and
> have done
> quite a bit of work with them. Paul, as I understand it, you're the closest
> to explaining
> her method. One problem though. I've never heard Pris advocate dry hanging the
> hammers or hanging every other one and I KNOW she never leaves the old
> hammers and shanks on and install every other one.
>
> I've had her glue several sets for me over the years and that isn't the way
> she does it.
> Yes, she dry hangs the guides (tightly) but from that point on, they're
> hung consecutively.
> Even though they may "look" crooked after gluing, after I do the normal
> traveling, they are
> normally very straight and I have very little burning to do .
>
> Her whole point is that it isn't NECESSARY to pre-travel the shanks in
> order to end
> up (after normal traveling) with reasonably straight hammers. She does
> check them
> and travels any that are grossly out prior to hanging but does not try to
> "fine" travel
> the shanks prior to hanging.
>
> This is the whole problem with using a jig to hang hammers. When one does
> that,
> one HAS to do a lot of pre-traveling or else there is a LOT of burning to
> do later. I
> know. I've bought pre-hung hammers and there is a lot of traveling and
> burning to
> do once they are installed, so even though I don't know for a fact, I can only
> assume that a jig of some kind is used to do that.
>
> It's very difficult to explain in words and as Pris has told me, to most
> people, it's
> very difficult to grasp the concept even in a class. You have to ignore the
> "traveling" of the hammer and pay attention to the "air", "light",
> whatever, between
> the top and the tail of the hammer when gluing. If that space doesn't
> change when
> you lift the hammer with the jack, even though it might LOOK like it's
> glued on
> crooked, once it's traveled correctly, it will be straight. If it's glued
> on so it "looks"
> straight, as when using a jig, once you do the traveling, the hammers are then
> crooked again and you have to do a lot of burning to straighten them up.
>
> Pris isn't saying that pre-traveling isn't a good way to do it,
> necessarily. She's only
> saying that it isn't "necessary" because once the hammers are hung, you
> usually
> have to go back and do a good bit of traveling anyway. I've tried to use
> the "lines
> drawn on a piece of wood" method of pre-traveling but I just have never
> been able
> to get it so accurate that I didn't have to go back and spend just about as
> much
> time as at the beginning in traveling after the hammers are hung and if I
> can avoid
> it, I really hate having to do the same job twice. :-)
>
> I really do understand the method in my mind but I've probably not done a good
> job of explaining it in words. Hope this makes a little sense to some.
>
> Avery
>
> P.S. Does E for Effort count? :-)
>
> At 09:57 AM 02/22/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >I guess I missed a couple of messages at the beginning of this thread, but
> >Pris's method (the one she used doing factory work in Germany) is as
> >follows (to
> >the best of my recollection), and ideally involves no squaring/burning,
> >although
> >mere mortals may find a bit necessary nonetheless.
> >
> >1.  Mount the shanks without traveling them.
> >2.  Dry hang the hammers, roughly squaring them.
> >3.  Glue hang every other hammer, orienting it such that it sweeps the same
> >amount of space on either side during its travel between the adjacent hammers.
> >The hammer may have to be tilted slightly to do that if its travel is not
> >vertical.  What this achieves is an orientation that is perpendicular to the
> >axis of travel, though not necessarily vertical until traveling has been done.
> >4.  Repeat step 3 for the remaining dry hung hammers.
> >5.  Travel the hammers in the normal way by shimming the flanges.
> >6.  Square/burn the hammers as needed, although if the other steps have been
> >done perfectly, this step will be unnecessary.
> >
> >When replacing old hammers and shanks, the variation would be as follows
> >(pardon
> >the repetition):
> >
> >1.  Mount every other shank without traveling them, leaving the remaining old
> >hammers and shanks in place.
> >2.  Glue hang the hammers, orienting them such that each sweeps the same
> >amount
> >of space on either side during its travel between the adjacent hammers.  The
> >hammer may have to be tilted slightly to do that if its travel is not
> >vertical.
> >What this achieves is an orientation that is perpendicular to the axis of
> >travel, though not necessarily vertical until traveling has been done.
> >3.  Travel the new hammers in the normal way by shimming the flanges.
> >4.  Square/burn the hammers as needed, although if the other steps have been
> >done perfectly, this step will be unnecessary.
> >5.  Repeat the above for replacement of the remaining old hammers.
> >
> >I am of course leaving out a bunch of detail not particularly relevant to the
> >method, but I hope it shows the idea.  As far as I know, Pris never advocated
> >burning as a method of traveling, and I agree that such a method does not
> >compute.
> >
> >Paul S. Larudee