I gotta side with David Love here, and others that take this position. Hammers that require draconian treatments such as pliers-mashing to get them soft enough to at all useable are not high quality piano hammers to begin with. Ok ok... lots of cheapos use such hammers... and a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do and all that I am sure... but decent voicing on decent instruments does not involve this kind of thing. Cheers RicB I strongly disagree. Yamahas, Kawais, Young Changs, and a few other Asians makes are considered decent instruments, yet after a few years of heavy playing (or even when brand new!), and in dry climates, can exhibit extremely hard hammers that break strings. Rather than break up and cut the fibers with sharp needles, which, especially on Yamahas, makes them pull apart at the crown, I opt for, as someone else put it, "deep tissue massage". [Webster's Collegiate: Draconian -- . . . ; barbarously severe, harsh]. Some of these hammers require severe treatment. I wouldn't consider it barbarous or harsh, if that's what it takes to be able to get them to accept voicing needles. As I said in another post, the Vise Grips are for gross, initial hammer softening, not for fine concert voicing. Steaming can also work if the hammers aren't excessively hard, but it affects mostly the surface and doesn't loosen up the felt deep in the shoulders. I don't believe in stabbing and stabbing and pricking and poking until the fibers are all torn up, there are hundreds of prick holes in the hammer, and you've got carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow. --David Nereson, RPT
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