Hammer Resilience

[Clark Sprague]

    I just did my first attempt at Dremel Tool voicing.  I read David's 
post, and tried deep needling the shoulders of the hammers of a Samick 
SG-185 that I talked about a while ago, and proceeded to break needles. 
They would not go into the hammers without breaking.
    I tried an experiment.  I hung sample hammers on 3 F's in a row, F2, F3, 
and F4 (Steinway hammers that came off a nicely voiced B).  The F#'s next to 
them, got needles, as best I could.  The G's next to that got an acetone 
bath, in case there was hardeners in there that I could wash away from the 
strike point.
    The result was:  the Steinway hammers made a huge difference in the 
sound (it sounded like a tin can before), and the acetone made the G's even 
worse.  The deep needling was just right, but as I said, it was with great 
difficulty.  So, I remembered a discussion on Dremel tool voicing from a 
while back, and tried it.  What a huge turnaround!  The piano now has depth 
that wasn't there before, along with a warm side, that definitely was not 
there.  It took about 15 shots almost to the core, on each shoulder of the 
hammer.  Then 3 shots right at the end of the string grooves, straight down, 
and a few still would not come down, so they took shots from the sides at 
11, 12, and 1 o'clock.  Suddenly, a pretty nice piano sound.
    Yes, new hammers, and steam were the alternatives, but I wanted to try 
to salvage the rock hard Samick hammers if I could.  I also learned that 
there is an optimum speed to run the Dremel, too fast, and you leave little 
black scorch marks in the hammer, and too slow, and you can't get them in, 
or out without difficulty and stalling the tool.
    I also just got done with the Baldwin SF-10 that I talked about a little 
while ago.  I put Abel "Naturals" on it (as suggested by Mark at Pianotek). 
What a huge turnaround on that one, too!!!.  Try them, you'll like them! 
YMMV, but very little needling required in this case.
    Thanks to all on this list, who have given so much to advance the skills 
of this RPT.  I appreciate it immensely.

Clark A. Sprague, RPT