I have a set of Weikerts on an S&S L and they sound great after two saturations of 10:1 thinner/lacquer. But I'm not sure they sound better than a set of Bacon felt hammers treated the same way and the cost is higher. I believe the Weikerts are meant to be firmer than this and there are some efforts being made to either modify the sheet manufacturing. Check with Ray. The problems may be solved by now. David Love www.davidlovepianos.com From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul T Williams Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 1:25 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Weickert Hammers Hi Ed. A fine reply. So, you would say that these would work great for practice rooms? My Abel naturals from wally are absolutely awesome, but waaaay too powerful for a 10x10 practice room. I have to voice the heck out of them to calm them down. On stage, they're awesome! no complaints from students, though, so I guess they like it. I like it too, but really really powerful hammers. The piano faculty and director are all giddy about the ones I installed on the D in our smallest recital room (seats 250) this summer. It's really, now, a great piano. Paul From: Ed Foote <a440a at aol.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Date: 09/18/2009 01:12 PM Subject: [pianotech] Weickert Hammers _____ Greetings, Just thought I would file a progress report on these Weickert hammers. I installed them in a 1925 model M this summer. They were soft, too soft. Though it really sounded warm and round, as I leaned on the keys, there was little change in color, and the top limit of brilliance was not there. They were just sounding weak. I juiced the whole set with a 7:1 lacquer dilution by putting an eyedropper full on the each side of the hammers. The tip of the eyedropper was touching the felt just above the tip of the molding, and I could see the mix radiating out into the lower felt. This keeps the solution away from the strike point, but firms up the deep felt below. The top and bottom octave got approx. one eyedropper full on the strike point. This did little to change the tone but the upper treble did begin to speak a little. The piano has now been in a practice room at the Vanderbilt, and it has been played about 9 hours a day for the last three weeks. BIG difference. Nice tone, no harshness, and a controllable change from mellow pianissimo to a full throated forte when you put some muscle in the key. If it would stay like this for a semester or two, it would be great. I did slide a needle in a couple of hammers in the fifth octave that had a bit of an edge, and they appear to take the needle with ease, voicing quite readily. Hope that is some interest to those that want to try these. A big factor is the expense of these hammers compared to the factory ones. The sound is virtually the same, the cost is much better. I don't know about the durability, but will know in a year or two. Regards, Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090919/f6c6ca8a/attachment.htm>
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