Best of both worlds -- hammer fitting

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Folks

Another discussion that was up a bit back was the tight fit - vs loose 
fit when fitting new hammers to their shanks. Glue considerations etc 
all get into this of course and there was a good deal of back and forth. 
I've always liked the tight fit because it allows me to do a dry fit of 
hammers that I can 100 % count on.... no wobble whatsoever.  But upon 
applying glue of course this becomes a bit troublesome.  So this time 
around I tried something perhaps some of you already do... but was new 
to me and boy did I like the results or what.

Shanks were your standard 5 mm give or take a rats hair.  So I bored to 
4.9 mm and reamed the few that absolutely demanded it for even a dry fit 
as needed.  Lined em all up nicely and checked the thing in the 
instrument... cool could really count on the strike line ended up with. 
Stayed nice and put.  Then when it came to actually gluing the 
hammers.... I took a 5 mm medium grade wood round file.. starts at 
something like 4 mm and gradually the diameter gets up to 5 mm... and 
ran this quickly in the bored hole of the molding to widen the hole 
enough to allow for just enough wobble that the glue setting too fast 
wasn't a problem.  Took a few hammers to get the hang of it... but in 
the end it really saved me a lot of time achieving a very beautiful 
straight set of tops and tails... and all at the exact rake I bored.

Anyways... just thought I'd mention it.

Cheers
RicB