reducing hammer weight

[David Love]

The noise thing aside, the table saw method of tapering won't discolor the
felt or leave the sides rough--assuming your blade is sharp.  It leaves a
very clean cut and with the proper jig (Spurlock style) is very
controllable.  The sanding method, on the other hand, definitely smears the
side of the hammer and tends to fray the felt at the edges.  

David Love
davidlovepianos at comcast.net 
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of John Delacour
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 1:11 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: reducing hammer weight

At 05:55 -0700 9/9/08, David Love wrote:

>As JD pointed out, a 1/8" hole will not yield a reduction in weight of
>anything near 1.5 grams.  In the case below I would order the set unbored
so
>that you can use the table saw method of reducing the weight with a full
end
>to end taper-especially if you are routinely having to remove that much
from
>the set that high up.

I've always done this with a plane -- more specifically a Stanley No. 
78 rabbet plane.  Being left-handed, I hold the plane upside down in 
the palm of my right hand and draw the hammer along the blade about 8 
times each side.  It is very fast and QUIET and leaves a silky 
surface with no discoloration of the white felt by the underfelt, 
neither of which is possible with any sanding or sawing arrangement. 
Besides, I hate the look of rough hammer sides.  I also hate noisy 
machines.

Of course the plane needs to be sharp and well-adjusted, as is the 
nature of planes, and one needs to hold the hammer in a certain way 
that makes it impossible to have an accident.

Occasionally a small number of hammers in a set will have a wild 
grain.  In that case I turn the them the other way up and push them 
into the blade with a lath, but this will only add a minute or two to 
the whole set and it doesn't often happen.  To taper 88 hammers takes 
about half an hour (20 seconds per hammer).  The tapering begins at 
the nose of the moulding and runs straight, as you see on the old 
Steinway hammers.  It looks very good.

JD