On 9/29/2010 3:14 PM, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: > More recently I have been able to design changes to the > hammer presses at Young Chang so that now the temperatures of the bottom > cauls can all be controlled independently of the temperatures of the > side cauls. The resulting hammers are significantly easier to match to > their intended scales and require much less voicing to adapt them to > individual models. And there has been absolutely no increase in > production time; the press cycle remains exactly the same as it had been > before the press modifications. And only a mere 20-30 years later. Progress zips past at a blinding rate, don't it? Is RF curing a possibility? Seems like a potentially shorter cycle time, and simpler plumbing, but I don't know enough about it to say. > There are so many ways to control the hammer making process that, with > just a bit of intelligent trial and error, it should be possible—/no, > dammit, it *is* possible!/— to make a hammer to suit any piano and any > desired piano voice with only minimal voicing required. The practical impediment, as always, is "intelligent" trial and error. > I regard all voicing techniques as destructive by their very nature. > Shouldn’t we be looking for hammers that require as little destruction > as possible? Yes, making huge adjustments to the deficiencies of the hammer to accommodate the deficiencies of the belly seems a tad misdirected. Like stuffing a turkey through the neck. Ron N
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