David: Ditto. I have always used SW hammers on SW, and after shaping, working on the shoulders of all of the hammers with lacquer. But the first shaping makes a huge difference before any chemicals. The quality of tone generation I get with that shaping pretty much tells me how much and where to concentrate my efforts. With SW, I have found that I need at least two passes with 4:1 to get close to where I want to be. From there it's spot application, sometimes groups; then evening everything out. I always go back over the hammer tops with very fine paper to get rid of the felt raised by the lacquer application. Also, for attack, I apply a couple of drops of acetone (actually the solution from Pianotek works just fine) directly on the strike point, then shallow needle for evenness. Thanks for your responses. Paul
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