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You may or may not know that the earliest felt used for piano-hammers was made from rabbit and hare fur, mixed with down and silk. Chopin's pianos used a very soft 'gray' felt which was probably made of a mixture of rabbit, cachemire and/or alpaca.. I have some of these hammers but I have not had them analyzed

here, thanks to Allen Wright, a piano-restorer in London, is a video showing rabbit-fur hammers taken from a 1919 Steinway model 0, compared to new Renners.

the Rabbit-felt has the unique ability to produce a soft, yet focused tone.. Wool-felt, as used in all modern hammers, tends to create a dull sound when toned-down by needling, in comparison to the firm, silvery, soft, veiled sonority of rabbit-felt.

click here to view theVideo
Alfred Dolge, father of the modern piano-hammer also mixed some rabbit-fur (which he called 'blue' felt) with his wool-felt hammers, after having nicked the idea from an European manufacturer of the time

Interesting... I'd never heard that before. The video was nice, but the supposedly rabbit fur/felt looked about the same as standard, sheep’s wool felt to me. And, the piano in the video sounded like most Steinway O's I've heard (which was great!).

I suppose hammer technology has come a long way since the days of using rabbit’s fur.

Rick

Well, it has evolved—I’m not sure that means it has improved.

We’re just coming off one of the truly dark periods in the history of piano hammermaking. Pianomakers are discovering that not everyone appreciates a piano hammer that must be counterbalanced by five or six leads even with a keytravel of 11.0+ mm. Not all ears welcome the sound of hammers pressed with so much pressure and heat that no semblance of resiliency is left in the poor things. And not all piano technicians are willing to “pre-jab” the bejeebers out a set of hammers to make their tone passably acceptable.

Press pressures seem to be coming down and increasingly we’re hearing about piano manufacturers using “cold-press” hammers. I doubt we’ll be seeing hammers using rabbit fur—economics—right away but at least we’re able to purchase hammers with hardness characteristics a little softer than granite.

ddf

I found that the piano sounded quite different with rabbit-felt, compared to the new Renners..

the gray felt has a softer, less metallic attack, and yet it's quite focused for such a mellow sound..

another advantage to rabbit-felt is that it does not become compact after repeated strikes from the hammer, so you don't need to needle the grooves out, or soften the hammer regularly, like you would on a normal wool-felt hammer.

unfortunately there is none in production to my knowledge.

Yes what you seem to hear is that the rabbit felt is much softer, resulting in a much less focused hit on the string which results in a much less sharp tone. Less overtones, less sharp attack and therefore the sustain seems to improve.

Although I agree with the rest of your post, I not sure about that last part-- In my experiences trying older evolutions of our "modern" piano, one of the most notably absent characteristics was long sustain. This manifests itself in the notably different tempi you hear fortepianists select for slow movements (for example) - the instrument just won't sustain the sound like our piano can today. Much of that difference surely has to do with other aspects of the instrument's construction besides hammer selection, though.

the chopin-period pianos, and even a while after that were quite soft and small-sounding instruments IMO

the low tension/wooden frame translates to an instrument with a bit of twang to it if the string is struck with a hard hammer.. softening the attack you would avoid the weakness, and would gain from the more interesting decay of low tension and resonance interplay of the wooden frame with the harmony.

How low is low? What kinds of tensions are we talking about?

ddf

Hello,

less than 50 kilos per string in the 1840's and less in the 1830's, with about half that in the early 1800's..


by the way I have been told by Mr. Wright that the piano in the recording is a Steinway A type and not an O.

terminaldegree



I'm talking about how it sounds in this recording. This sounds to me like a *modern grand* equipped with rabbit felt.

On older instruments yes sure, the sustain was shorter generally. But also there, the use of softer felt might compensate that partially.

I would be interested in seeing microscope pictures of rabbit fur fibers. I am not at all convinced that they would even work to make hammers, as not all hairs have the same interlocking capability that sheep's wool has.

How were these suppositions about the material made? Has there been any real reference to a hammer maker using rabbit fur, or is this only based on the appearance of the hammer felt? That is not really very conclusive.

But my doubts are only based on the feel of rabbit fur and the smooth, long hair appearance. Maybe if run through the felting process they could be made to interlock like wool. Interesting idea.

I’ve not looked at it through a microscope either but…I do remember, some years back, seeing hats made of what was claimed to be rabbit fur. My memory—always fallible—tells me the material had a base of wool with the rabbit fur mixed in. In any case the material was felted.

I have looked at hammer felt made with synthetic fibers added to the wool to increase the bulk and lower the cost. I can absolutely guarantee that those fibers didn’t felt! I don’t know if the company involved ever used the stuff or not but it was offered.

ddf

Rabbit fur was indeed used, even in 'modern' piano hammers.

Alfred Dolge called rabbit-felt Blue Felt, and marketed it as a superior fibre.

you can look it up on google books, it is mentioned that Dolge's blue felt was rabbit felt.

The Rabbit hair does not felt as easily as wool, and this is actually an advantage, because it never seems to compact and become hard-sounding, like wool does....it just eventually wears-out.

as far as Asian Manufacturer's hammer-felt, applying steam to the hammer shows that the felt is not normal wool-felt, but a felt which looks to be held together by some binding agent.. there are probably other fibres than wool even in the better asian brands, I have read somewhere..

anyhow, the asian hammer-design (hard, dense felt) does not really have much in common with a pre-war Steinway hammer anyhow, especially a gray rabbit-felt hammer..

By the way, you don't use the long, smooth hair of the rabbit to make the felt, but the curly, downy stuff near the skin, which has a bit of crimp to it as well as being fine in diameter.

The word “steam” may be misunderstood. The moisture content of the wool strip has to be fairly high as it is fed into the hammer press. Not dripping wet—this lets the felt pack down too much, especially if the heat in the press is high—but higher than ambient in most parts of the world. To get the felt to the proper moisture content the strips are stored in a “steam” chamber. It is called a steam chamber because the relative humidity of the air in the chamber is controlled by a combination of heat—it’s usually warmer than the air in the rest of the room—and periodic injections of steam.




It is no longer valid to categorize all “Asian” hammers as having the same rock-hard density common just a few years ago. Some still do but there are now several companies showing signs of sanity. Young Chang/Weber hammers are now pressed with the temperature of the felt being held below the glass transition point of the wool. As well, the pressures in the presses have been decreased significantly. And, while I don’t know the details of the process I’m told Hailun is also pressing hammers at lower temperatures and pressures.

ddf

Hi,

what I mean by 'adding steam' is that if you try and swell the fibres of a yamaha, or chinese hammer (mind you, perhaps not ALL but the ones I've seen) with steam, the felt swells-up disproportionately and it seems to fall apart in a way.. this leads me to think that there is a binding agent which holds the fibres together, and not just 'felting'...

on real wool felt, made with wool, soap and water, you can steam without worrying about it destroying the hammer, in my experience..

All the piano industry needs now is to have P.E.T.A. get hold of this rabbit felt thing and stage one of their "press slut" (a direct quote from the founder) media actions.

Luckily, I have a feeling it's not even true.

Unluckily, I have a feeling that wouldn't stop them.

I thought we liked wool from sheep, innocently sheared, for piano hammers. Hasn't this been long settled and accepted technology? We've been weaned off elephant ivory, do we have to have the other eye blacked for going after the Easter Bunny?

Now, if I could just figure out how to get long, black dog hair to felt I could supply the whole industry! As long as we were all willing to accept black hammers.

ddf

I have no way of knowing how limited your experience is, but the sweeping generalities you come up with do not really hold much water. (Excuse the pun). Are you saying that Yamaha hammers have some kind of a glue that holds the felt together?

This is the way misinformation gets started. As we all know, once anything, no matter how ill-conceived, is repeated three times on the internet, it becomes the Truth.

Black hammers - the final frontier! Maybe the makers of those sexy black actions would jump at the opportunity to go black all the way...