Fw: Upright Hammer Weight

[Farrell]

After a little additional thought while bathing and washing the dogs, I
reasoned that upright hammer weights should be in line with grand hammer
weights. Why not? Similar stringing scale & soundboard designs, similar blow
distance, similar key dip, hammer must be accelerated to similar speeds. So
should not the hammer mass be similar to that of a grand? If so, then should
I not be able to successfully utilize the Stanwood hammer mass charts for
guidance??? What do others do? Simply duplicate?

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2001 9:32 AM
Subject: Upright Hammer Weight


> I'm doing my first complete rebuild (except for wippens which seem to be
in
> amazingly great shape) on an old upright. I'm installing new butts,
shanks,
> hammers, key bushings, key pins, keybed felt, and completely rebuilding
the
> damper system - all new felt, bushings, springs, etc. - good education
here!
> Finished traveling all the butts (not a 10-minute process!).
>
> I'm just about ready to install hammers and I weighed a few. Old #59 =
4.3g,
> New Abel #59 = 6.6g. Old #28 = 4.9g, New Abel #28 = 7.7g. The old weights
> are far off the light end of the Standwood grand hammer weight curves. The
> new Abel weights are on, but near the far light end of the Stanwood
> spectrum. The new hammers are not tapered, etc.
>
> I don't have a clue as to where to target weights (I realize the Stanwood
> high, medium, and light zones may differ for an upright hammer) and how to
> determine optimal target weight/weight zone. I realize I could just
estimate
> the amount of felt loss on the old hammers and try to duplicate what was
> there (amount of tapering, etc.), but I would always want to at least
> explore and be aware of where the optimal range is rather than just
blindly
> duplicating what may be a less than optimal original design. If I'm going
to
> duplicate, I want to do it from a standpoint of knowledge rather than
> ignorance.
>
> Thanks for any iput.
>
> Terry Farrell
>