Pianotech

A little while ago I had a pig's ear of an instrument which send me into apoplexy and a simple tuning job turned into something else.

The instrument had foul strings which didn't render, inharmonics beyond description, probably a lost crown, and two sizes of tuning pins, just the centre having been restrung with modern pins and treble and bass with very small pins . . . needing me to return home and get another lever. No lunch, Two hours travel, restarting and exhaustion at the end of the day. Despite the hammers having said to have been refelted with Abel felt the sound was painfully and uncharacteristically hard. At the end of the afternoon, exasperated and nearly delirious the instrument left me drained.

I lubed the agraffes with Protek. Later on having reshaped the hammers I applied vodka drops to soften them, a technique of the late and sorely missed Susan Kline.

After a week the client said the middle section hammers lacked harmonics and I haven't yet returned to see what the problem might be.

However, due to exhaustion that day I might have made a mistake.

I use the same dropper bottle for both vodka and protek and after application return the protek to the protek bottle and the vodka to the vodka bottle. It's difficult to believe that I would have been so stupid but the instrument had led to exasperation and exhaustion.

Perhaps I can hear you thinking that I should have walked away a good deal earlier but this was an important client.

Returning to my kit a few weeks later I found the vodka cloudy as if contaminated with protek, as if absent mindedly perhaps I'd have put the remains of protek into the vodka bottle. Hypothetically potentially I might have applied protek to the hammers instead of vodka . . .

If I've been so stupid, which I can't believe but the possibility is there, what might be a way of returning some hardness to the hammers? Ironing with a hot iron?

Best wishes

David P

------------------------------
David Pinnegar BSc ARCS
Hammerwood Park, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK
+44 1342 850594
"High Definition" Tuning
------------------------------

If you've got some extra or junk hammers lying around, I suggest you try applying protek CLP to them and see what happens. My guess is that it will evaporate too quickly to actually cause any significant tonal change, similar to if you'd used pure alcohol instead of vodka. The general wisdom with felt is that water makes the actual change, and things like alcohol just act as a surfactant to get the water deeper in there. 

At any rate I'm sure the usual tricks will work to bring the tone up. Dry ironing is really fast and easy so I'll usually try that first.

------------------------------
Nathan Monteleone RPT
Fort Worth TX
(817) 675-9494
nbmont@gmail.com
------------------------------

It's more likely that the alcohol treatment just brought the hammers down too much, that can be a fairly aggressive move depending on the strength of the application.  Water will cause the felt to expand at the crown and soften it pretty quickly. I've never put protek on hammers but I question whether that would have that effect. 

It will be hard to tell without a return to the Piano but I would start with a light filing of the hammers followed by a Fine polishing with 800 grit. Make sure the hammer string mating is correct and then if you still don't have enough punch, use a light chemical hardening solution of your choice just a couple of drops on the crown. Test it on a single hammer and see what happens. If you don't like it you can always needle it out. 

------------------------------
David Love RPT
www.davidlovepianos.com
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
415 407 8320
------------------------------

David P., do you have a piano hammer ironing tool?

It's the curved brass piece, as wide as a piano hammer with the end that attaches to an electric soldering iron.

This works much better than a clothing iron, as you can add pressure as you burnish the hammer top.

------------------------------
Ed Sutton
ed440@me.com
(980) 254-7413
------------------------------