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just fixed the middle C and B on my own ( with proper piano tools) and I am very proud of myself.

dammit after 10 minutes it was gone... I need my tuner

I hate when that happens.

David Andersen, a fine technician, had a saying that went something like, "Don't learn your skill on a good piano and do not lower your standards to waste your skills on a bad piano." I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

It's been my experience (which is somewhat limited) that hammer voicing doesn't usually last for long periods of time, regardless of how good the tech/voicer is. Of course, how much the piano is played, and how hard, is certainly a big part of the equation. I'm thinking if it lasts a year, you're getting good mileage out of the voicing, before it needs it again.

That is why I always say to buy a piano that you like the sound/tone of from the very beginning. Years ago, when I was actively shopping for a piano, I had a dealer to tell me he could voice a piano I was looking at any way I wanted, up or down. Yea, but how long would it last?

On the other hand, 10 minutes is rather short lived. But I'll bet it sounded great during that time frame.

Good luck!

Rick

I find it lasts longer and longer as you touch it up over and over, which is why I will do some voicing for free if I have time at the end of a tuning.

I would call this "grooming" the hammers to sound the way you want them to sound consistently.

That is why you're a pro, BDB. You know how to do it, and what it takes to make it stick around a while.

Rick

Greetings,
The results of voicing can vary with the depth of the treatment. It is not uncommon for techs to 'voice' a hammer with only some shallow needling near the crown of the hammer. Just enough to remove the metallic attack. However, this gives rather short-lived results.

A more thorough approach will have softened the lower shoulders, and carried that softening upwards toward the crown so that there is a graduated hardness to the hammer. This, if done carefully, will produce a hammer that will be mellow sounding at pianissimo and brilliant at forte. More importantly, it will produce a consistent increase in brilliance as the force is gradually increased, and this response curve will be the same from hammer to hammer. This approach is recommended for hammers that have been made with resilient wool and sufficient compression. A softer hammer such as Steinway used for many years will have a hardener soaked into it, and will respond better to needles straight down into the crown,(as demonstrated by Fred Drasche in many classes).

There have also been a lot of hammers marketed in the last 40 years that were made with excessive heat and pressure. These hammers will not usually lend themselves to durable voicing, as there is little flexibility in their felt. In these cases, steam can yield better results than needles. However, based on what I observed in decades of use in university practice rooms, soft shoulders supporting firmer crowns give longer lasting voicing as well as longer hammer life.
Regards,

I just saw I used voicing instead of tuning....

Tuning is a different issue. You need to develop a feel for it. Make sure you have a good tuning lever, with an appropriate tip firm on the tuning pin, and try to rotate the pin rather than bend it. Avoid turning the pin too much, pull the string very slightly over pitch, and just barely put a little pressure to lower the pitch. It takes a lot of practice. I like to say that I can teach you to tune a piano in an afternoon, and then you just have to go out and practice for a few years!

And I like counter this statement by saying that the "go out and practice for a few years" is a euphemism for spending 80-90% of those few years on Trial&Error i.e. a waste of time.

Constant supervision and correction can eliminate this waste of time to a large extent. 6 months of true apprenticeship will make you more than just a good tuner, it will make you an excellent tuner with an ear for the beauty of a sound, the ability to produce a rock solid tuning that survives the onslaught of a recital banger and where the feeling of the necessity of mating strings to hammers and bridge pins becomes second nature to you.

i never hoped to become so good that i can tune a whole piano... just to fix one single string, that is a little bit out of tune.

i have that tuning set from "thomann" and the lever feels solid and grabs the pin good.

but thanks for all the tips..

cannot be rocket science to fix one single string (the shortest) of the middle C

Rocket science is binary...tuning is not.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

Turning this thread back to voicing, my limited experience with voicing pretty much aligns with what Ed wrote. My last voicing project was on the hammers of my '99 Petrof and these hammers behave like the ones Ed describes that are made with excessive heat and pressure. I softened the shoulders and near crown area, yet the sound was still too bright. Sugar coating the tips really helped, but the effect went away after a few days. Further needling of the shoulders and near crown were no longer options as those areas were pretty soft and open already. What finally did it for me was water, similar to what Dale Erwin uses on really hard hammers, except I did not heat up the alcohol/water solution as he does. The water is wicked into the hammer via alcohol, and I used 91% isopropyl at room temperature in a hypo oiler, which has a small amount of water in it (9%). Applying it from the tip of the hammer, it easily soaked down all the way to the moulding. I did this about a month ago, and the excessive brightness is gone. Instead, the tone is warm and round like it was after sugar coating, but it is more uniform and the effect has not worn off. As I understand it, the small amount of water is what puffs out the felt, creating more space in the felt under the crown which was overly compacted in my hammers. On really hard hammers, I hear that 70% isopropyl could be used as its greater water content would further soften the felt. Baldwin used to suggest a similar solution to soften its hammers.

FYI if needling isn't doing it for you on hard hammers.

Those "hard hammers" are already well beyond any consistent treatment.

Hammers are composed of Keratin and Lanolin and have a consistent tension distribution across all the various components of a hammer and its structure.

Leave them as they come from the hammer manufacturer, they should always do what an experienced voicing expert does to them with needles. Introduce chemical agents to the hammers without a documented protocol leaves you with hammers that are beyond repair. You'll end up with "grand obsession" voodoo.

With a result like that you get new hammers and start from scratch.

Hi Emery,

The hammers on my Yamaha C7 are getting pretty hard by now. It's getting difficult to get a voicing needle into them, without some aggressive stabbing force. But the stabbing approach works to an extent (just be careful not to stab your fingers:-). They (hammers) are probably the factory originals, but still have some life left in them, based on the amount of felt still left above the wood molding. And, the tone is not bad as is.

They could probably use reshaping and voicing now, since they do have some noticeable string grooves in them. And, I put every one of those string grooves in them, and had a ball doing it!

I'm thinking next time I may try the steaming approach that Ed mentioned. I've used the isopropyl alcohol, with some positive results, but was really conservative on the amount I used. I remember years ago I accidently applied too much alcohol on a hammer on an older upright piano I had, and it tamed the brightness alright, but almost killed the tone. That was a valuable learning experience, and is also when I learned a little about the art of hammer ironing and wood block pounding of the strike-point, to try and recover some of the sound after over-voicing. And, it worked to an extent! However, I'd much rather not over-voice to begin with. When it comes to voicing, I've learned that a little at a time is best. Then, do more if needed.

I've also had some good results with the "plier squeeze" method on some old uprights I've had. But I'd rather not try that on my C7, at least not yet. I know it will need new hammers one of these days. But like I said, I think there is still some life left in the current hammers, as far as my old, injured hearing is concerned.

I always enjoy reading about your voicing experiences, and all your piano tech endeavors.

Thanks for sharing!

Rick

Thanks Rick. Do you know the percentage of water in your alcohol mix? As I understand it, alcohol itself doesn't affect the voicing and can't deaden your hammers. Rather, it's the water that does it (that's why steaming works), and perhaps your mix had too much water that ended up puffing the felt too much? It seems alcohol is simply an alternative to steam as a carrier to get the water deep into the hammer, but then evaporates with little effect of its own. I got the idea from Del Fandrich who says he sometimes uses 70% isopropyl on hammers that don't respond to needle voicing, but recommended I start conservatively with 91% since I was new to the process, and he couldn't asses my hammers in person. I'm glad for his advice because the effect was just right. Any higher water content and my hammers may have gotten too mellow.

OE1FEU: you're probably right that the best result would be to replace my hard, stock hammers with better quality ones. But before replacing, I always like seeing how far I can push old parts, especially if I'm considering replacing them anyway. Maybe it's because I like doing things on the cheap when possible, but I also am curious what will happen. New quality parts replacements should always yield the best results, but if you only did that, you'd never know what alternate possibilities there are. Luckily I like the results on my hammers, but they may sound too mellow to some. Eventually I'll get around to posting some recordings so you can assess the results (and maybe see how right you really were!)

Ps: Rick, I tried an old C7 at the piano store yesterday and I can see how it can sound amazing with good voicing. It's a great piano. If your hammers are responding to needles less and less, that sounds like my situation. My last attempt was angel shot voicing that I'd read about in a PTG Journal issue, and when that had zero effect, I knew my hammers were beyond needling. Since the next step was replacement, I figured I'd try modern chemistry first, and it is working so far. But I know that one day the itch to try some new Ronsens or Renner Blue Points will be too great and my wife will be wondering why I'm taking our "perfectly fine piano" apart yet again.

Actually, I have good luck working with a G7 with original hammers. The trick is to forget about all the "don'ts" that you hear from people who get so stuck on what other people have told them.

You need some elasticity under the strike point. Despite what you may have heard, the hammer has to stay on the string long enough to transfer its energy to the string, and actually a little bit longer to mute out the harshness. Needling under the strike point can accomplish that. On the other hand, the strike point itself needs some firmness to give definition to the tone.

Above all, you need to stay within the budget. Nothing turns off a customer more than telling them that they need to spend hundreds more than they expected, or than what the piano is worth. Doing what you can with what you have to work with is what leads to long-term success. If you can make a cheap piano sound better at a reasonable price, they will trust you when they decide to move up.

Yea, my C7 still sounds nice, despite the hammer wear. So, I'm not in a big hurry to do any major reshaping and voicing, though it is in the future at some point. The last time I did the hammer reshaping and needling was about 3 years ago.

When the Piano Buddies group met at my home back in April, I got to hear the C7 played from a distance, rather than sitting at the bench and playing it myself, and, it sounded fantastic to me. Of course, it was being played by some pianists that knew how to play, and play well! I'm sure that made a difference.

I've had the C7 about 10 years or so, and have really enjoyed it! I consider myself very fortunate and blessed to own it, even if it is an older model. I played it some this evening, and it always puts a smile on my face!

Not long after I got the C7, Sally Phillips came by and did some tuning, regulation and voicing, including reshaping the hammers. She did a great job, and gave me some good pointers, and a good lesson on tuning and voicing. It is nice to watch a pro in action! Plus, Sally is a well known and renowned concert piano tech, and a nice person.

Now, what was this thread about originally? Voicing and tuning, or tuning and voicing?

Rick