reducing hammer weight

[David Love]

I see from your photos that those are Ronsen hammers with Sapele moldings.
I've been using the lightweight maple almost exclusively for awhile now.  I
wonder if the Sapele isn't a pit more prone to coming apart like that.  

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 Ron Nossaman
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 6:48 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: reducing hammer weight

David Love wrote:
> Has that actually happened to you?  

Sure has, maybe a half dozen times total, with varying degrees 
of damage.


>I've hit staples, or the edges of them,
> on several occasions without any adverse effect.  Abel hammers (which I
> don't use that often) or notorious for large staples the extend out to the
> edges of the hammer.  It's almost impossible not to hit them when doing a
> full taper which tends to push them away from the hammer a bit.  I just
push
> them back down and there seems to be no real consequence for the stability
> of the hammer.

I might hit six or seven staples through multiple sets with no 
problem. It's the odd one that isn't not a problem that's the 
problem.

Ron N