At 14:57 -0500 15/2/09, erwinspiano at aol.com wrote: >>No doubt when the experimentation is completed Abel will also give >>this option. > >That is correct they do not have the felt.ÊIn my opinion itÊis no >longer expereimental but a reality with several densities. ÊAbel >would need to acquire this felt first. Yes. I described it as experimental because that was the word used by Mr. Dubois of Wurzen when I spoke to him a couple of months ago. At this stage only Renner, as regards Germany, has the felt. Whether there is any resistance from Abel to using it, I have no idea, but I imagine Wurzen want to test the waters thoroughly before making the product more widely available and hope that Abel will sooner or later get some. >In the pastÊI have struggled & failed to get the tone I desire from >the Abel product in generalÊbut that's just me.ÊFar too many needle >stokes, butÊI have heard good things about the Abel Natural felt. >I've seen some that flexed nicely & some stillÊso stiff I coudn't >get a needle in. Thats manufacturing. My experience in the last couple of years has been very good. I have dealt with Abel for many years and was certainly not always as satisfied as I am now. But nearly all the sets I get from them are either custom made to my strict instructions or else re-cover jobs. It is a long time since I ordered a 'standard' set of Abels. Besides that, they know I am very fussy, so I imagine a warning flag comes up when they get an order from me! It is many years since I came across such hammers as I could not easily tone. >Ray Does use a Dolge type screw press. Jd, whyÊwould you consider >that primitive? There areÊsome advatages in my experience. I call it primitive without necessarily any pejorative sense. A highly skilled artisan can produce good work, if not too much of it, with primitive machines. We have had this discussion on the list quite recently. Dolge used screw presses in the early days (say about 1887) but by the time he was at his zenith in 1910 he had been designing and using automatic machines for a long while. See page 103 ff of his book. At all events, the good thing is that unlike the 1980s, when there was little choice, it is now possible for us to buy good hammer-heads. When I look at some of the hammers produced at the turn of the 19th century, I still envy them the choice they had then and the variety of felts, but those days will not return. JD
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