Tricky Hammers

[Bill Ballard]

At 1:24 AM +0200 1/31/03, Paul Tizzard wrote:
>I just wondered if this was a common experience with duplicate
>hammers. I did send samples with the order. The replacement hammers
>differed in tail length and the new hammers were about 0.5 mm wider.
>The bore angle was a pretty good match. The moulding shape also
>differed quit a lot, not drastic though. I eventually had to reshape
>the shoulders and the sides of the tails.
>Any help would be appreciated.

Just how close a size match were the old and the new. You mention 
that the latter are 0.5mm thicker, but how about the bore length, how 
about the width across the shoulders. When these get bigger, you 
quickly lose the clearance which the bass hammers need.

You probably found that leaning them helped. 19th Century piano 
frequency have bevels sliced into them once again to restore 
clearance. (Not just uprights but grands as well.)

I'm glad you survived it. (Did you check for fresh spouts in the 
chest hairs? <g>)

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"May you work on interesting pianos."
     ...........Ancient Chinese Proverb
+++++++++++++++++++++