Paul: I am not sure if your queery was directed to me, but if it was... I have not used Ronsen hammers much until recently. The old style hammer that they made was too large and heavy and rather dead to my ear. Recently, however, I was reintroduced to them by Dale Erwin (erwinpaino@aol.com). Evidently, a few years ago, Ronsen started using Abel felt (coldpressed)and streamlined the design. I bought a set for samples about a year ago and have found that the new hammers are a nice alternative when a hotpressed or Steinway hammer is not suitable. I find them similar in character to an Isaac hammer but it's easier to get them lighter in weight when using the mahogany mouldings. They are also less expensive--if that is an issue. How I voice them, of course, depends on the piano but they do need some hardening at the extremes generally. I still use lacquer/acetone usually in a 1:3 mixture, though sometimes 1:4 (I am not personally fond of keytop or plexiglass solutions). Otherwise, the hammer has good firmness out of the box and responds well to light needling on the crown. David Love >From: Yardarm103669107@AOL.COM >Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org >To: pianotech@ptg.org >Subject: Re: Chickering rebuild -- touchweight. >Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 21:58:25 EST > >David: >I have used Ronsens on a variety of non-fine pianos with varying success >over >the years; the greatest variation I've found comes in at voicing. Do you >have >a procedure of a voicing sequence that you can generalize about, or, as >with >me, too much depends on the particular piano? >Paul Revenko-Jones _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
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