Vise Grips voicing is not a vice

[David Love]

Unfortunately, I think that pliers are often the only choice with hammers
like that.  Yamaha, btw, does not recommend the use of pliers, at least not
officially.   I don't disagree with the procedure itself, it's hammers that
require such treatment that I disagree with.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: Dave Nereson <davner@kaosol.net>
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Date: 7/26/2004 11:47:17 AM
> Subject: Vise Grips voicing is not a vice
>
> 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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