Brian, Thank you for your kind words. I've used a 15 ° short head for many years. This was a suggestion in class made by Jim Coleman Sr. and the late George Defebaugh. In fact Jim Coleman Jr offers a 20 ° head on his site. (See the description below) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 DEGREE TUNING HEAD Using a short tip with the 20 degree head allows for most control, less torquing of the tuning pin, and still good clearance of struts. It will fit most tips and levers. $21 each http://www.colemantools.com/www.colemantools.com/index.shtml Without the 15 ° angle on the short head the lever will not clear many plate struts. In fact my last lever was shipped with the Coleman 20 ° head at the buyers request. The default on my levers is the Schaff 15 ° head because it is well made and shorter than the Watanabe 15 ° version with the Watanabe tips as they are superior to the Schaff in my opinion. I've tuned quite a few pianos with the Coleman head but my lever has such a narrow profile that the 15° head is more than sufficient for strut clearance. I chose to use a standard hex shaft on my levers to provide the flexibility of using whatever head-tip combination you prefer I hope this helps and I will ship to Australia ! http://tomdriscollpianoservice.com/tools.html Best wishes, Tom Driscoll -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wilsonpiano at hotmail.com To: piantech at ptg.org Subject: Tuning hammer heads Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 15:13:54 +1000 Hi All I have been thinking about tuning hammer heads since Tom Driscoll's post last week. btw nice work Tom! I looked at the link and found the default head was a 15 degree. There was a testomonial stating the user now prefers the 15 degree over the older way of using the 5 degree. Please enlighten me. Why do these new hammers have a default head of 15 degrees? eg Faulk, Fujan and now Driscoll. Most of these first two come with a 15 and yes I know you can order the 5. I know that it is best to be as close to the tuning pins as possible and the hammer must move in a circle, etc and no bending of the pins etc ! but I am intrigued why . Do you have higher plates ? Convienient ? Just the way you do it? I did try a 15 on a schaff tuning hammer. It seemed so strange, and I felt like I was going to bend the pin I too, have been using 5 and 10 degree heads over the years. My first tool kit was purchased through Kawai and the tuning hammer was a 5 degree Itoshin. I remember seeing these tuning hammers in the Hamamatsu factory. Since wearing that tool out, I bought a Watanabe and that is 10 degrees. That tool took a while to get used to, as 10 degrees to me seems large. Reminds of running up a 10 degree hill... ouch Thoughts please ? btw haven't posted anything for a while... when you have nothing to say, say nothing.. Regards Brian Brian Wilson Brisbane, Australia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100909/dea0a667/attachment.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 3382 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100909/dea0a667/attachment.jpeg>
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