Softening hard 1980 Sohmer hammer advice requested.

[gordon stelter]

In the case of the Sohmer, Mr. Foote's idea was very
useful: iron over damp flannel placed on hammers. Not
much variance in tone color from soft to loud, but
they DID stop "crashing"!!!
     Thump


--- Horace Greeley <hgreeley at stanford.edu> wrote:

> 
> Hi, Alan,
> 
> At 10:32 PM 11/26/2006, you wrote:
> >Hi Thump,
> >
> >Maybe a moot issue now. But I have a S&S M action
> in the shop now with
> >over-lacquered hammers. I tried washing out the
> lacquer with acetone. I
> >soaked the hammers with a generous helping of
> acetone. Four applications of
> >acetone over 2 weeks. Vigorous needling, squeezing
> the hammers to try to
> >breathe life into these lacquer brickettes. I made
> almost no progress.
> 
> Hmmm...are you sure that they were hardened with
> lacquer and not 
> plastic ("keytop")?  If lacquer, then I would
> suggest using lacquer 
> thinner.  One or two really healthy doses should do
> it.  If "keytop" 
> (which, if from the factory, it is something else),
> then acetone is 
> the right way to go...but, perhaps with a slightly
> different 
> technique.  If you pull the stack, and, rotating it
> so that the 
> hammer tails are free, set the tails into some kind
> of shallow pan (I 
> use old aluminum ice cube trays).  Then, flood the
> hammers with 
> acetone until it runs freely down/out of them.  As
> soon as you are 
> done with that, cover the hammers with aluminum foil
> and wait...4 - 6 
> hours or overnight.  Repeat this a couple of times. 
> In either case, 
> once you see the hardener starting to "run" out of
> the hammer as you 
> apply the next batch of thinner/acetone, blow the
> hammers out with 
> compressed air.
> 
> The "trick" in the above is to be patient until
> whatever hardener has 
> been used is again in solution.  Remember that it
> takes time for 
> "keytop" material to dissolve in acetone, and that
> it is usually 
> broken up or relatively thin when that is done. 
> Once it hardens up 
> in a hammer, it turns into a brick...so, getting it
> back into 
> solution is going to take some time.
> 
> >Called the piano owner and explained that the
> hammers were beyond repair.
> >Now I'm replacing these with S&S hammers and Abel
> shanks (it is from the
> >teflon era). It'll be interesting to see how these
> newer S&S hammers sound.
> >Hammer #1 weighs 10.1g and #88 weighs 5.2g -
> unbored untapered.
> 
> All of the above said, one does have to weigh the
> cost of time spent 
> rescuing something v. the time simply replacing it.
> 
> >You might have better success than I did, but these
> hammers were the worst
> >I've ever seen.
> 
> I've done this any number of times, most often with
> at least 
> reasonable results...still, as noted, sometimes the
> best thing to do 
> is to start over.
> 
> If you can, I'd suggest seeing if you can keep the
> old parts to 
> experiment with and see if you can (eventually) do
> something with 
> them.  I think that the only such set the I have
> actually had to 
> throw away was one that had been similarly treated
> and then 
> deep-needled to death through the crown.  The poor
> hammers simply 
> fell apart once the hardeners had been dissolved.
> 
>   Best.
> 
> Horace
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >Alan
> >
> >--Alan McCoy, RPT
> >Inland Northwest Chapter
> >Spokane, WA
> >ahm at webband.com
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
> [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
> >Of gordon stelter
> >Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2006 11:17 AM
> >To: Isaac Sadigursky; Pianotech List
> >Subject: Softening hard 1980 Sohmer hammer advice
> requested.
> >
> >Am trying to soften the hammers on a 1980 Sohmer
> grand, 5'7".
> >The hammers are those ones with the purple
> underfelt, and the yellow lacquer
> >shoulders. ( What a  color combo !!! ) WAAAAAAAAY
> too hard !!!!
> >Have already sanded out minor grooves, and now
> planning to "sugar-coat"
> >strike points with shallow needling. But would
> prefer specific advice from
> >someone who has already worked with this hammer
> type, in a similar
> >predicament.
> >
> >       Thanks!
> >       Thump
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>____________________________________________________________________________
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> 
> 



 
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