Hammer height conundrum on a '46 Hardman grand

[Barbara Richmond]

Hi George,

How worn are the hammers?  Sometimes you can't quite get up to specs if 
they're worn to the nubs.

One suggestions is you might have a look at the knuckles, they may be
flattened.  You can pull yard, bushing cloth or leather through the knuckles
to restore a round shape (use the 2 prong lacing needles that "grip" bushing
cloth or leather from Tandy Leather Company--they're online) .  That'll 
raise the hammers.

Barbara Richmond

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Whitty" <gwhitty@optonline.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 9:38 PM
Subject: Hammer height conundrum on a '46 Hardman grand


> Hi, Everybody:
>
>   I was given a Hardman 5'5" grand piano by a total stranger, started
> fiddling with it and am now knee-deep into cleaning, repairing and
> regulating it, having a hell of a good time, I must say!  I'm following
> Arthur Reblitz's chronology on the regulation, have done every step up to
> "set the hammer height", where I encounter an anomaly:  he instructs the
> reader to set the hammers to sit 1 3/4 inches below the strings, though
> adds
> a caveat that the manufacturer may specify differently.  On my little
> piano,
> which may never have been regulated since it left the factory, the hammers
> are sitting something like 2 5/16" below the strings.  So I have three
> questions:  first, is it really possible for the felt capstan contact to
> have compressed enough that it takes 2 to 2.5 full turns of the capstan to
> take up the slack and restore the distance to 1 3/4"?  Second, I seem to
> have a "Steinway style action", in
> which, rather than a hammer rest rail, each wippen holds its own hammer
> rest.  At this time, the hammer shanks rest less than 1/8 inch above the
> hammer rests, or else actually just sit on the hammer rests (I understand
> that the hammer knuckle is actually supposed to support the whole thing,
> sitting on the repetition lever just a fraction above the jack);  when I
> raise the capstan enough to lift the hammer to 1 3/4" below the strings,
> the
> hammer shank now sits almost 1/2" above the hammer rest.  Is this correct?
> There's a picture on page 50 of the Reblitz book showing a grand piano
> action that looks about like this.  Finally, is there an entirely
> different
> spec for Hardman grands in this measurement that I should know about?
> Thanks
> very much to any of you who'll help an enthusiastic newcomer to the care
> of
> the Last Great Analog Device...
>
> George Whitty
>
>
>
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