On Feb 17, 2009, at 9:38 AM, David C. Stanwood wrote: > My other comment.... when I was in School at North Bennet St. > (1978) Bill Garlick taught us a technique which is very useful on > these cold pressed hammers as a really safe way of using lacquer > for building drive in the tone. Tip the stack up on its side and > add some lacquer to the felt just above the tip of the moulding... > do one side then turn it around and do the other... It gives > foundation to the tone without having any deleterious effects on > the surface of the felt and maintains a beautiful ppp quality that > is the hallmark of a cold pressed hammer. The technique is > consistent with the Dolge model of voicing.? I've been using this to very good effect for about six years now, after hearing it mentioned on PTx (referred to as the "Pearl of Power", as I remember). Mechanically what's happening is that the felt just above the underfelt (and the underfelt itself) is being moved from the flexible, live category (hammer felt) to the solid, inert category (wooden hammer moulding). Apparently, it's possible to have too much felt for good tone (especially considering that the part from the strike point on down the hammer CL where actual squash-under-impact occurs is quite shallow). Hardening under the strike point has the effect of extending the height of the moulding and subtracting from the thickness of the felt covering. I stay away from reinforcing the strike point unless it's quite clear that that's the only thing which will get me the sound I want. Best Regards, mrbl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090217/f3a84b35/attachment.html>
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