upright voicing procedure

[Andrew and Rebeca Anderson]

Ed,
I'm assuming that you are talking about an older upright with a hard sound.
Soft bristle brushing and or vacuum cleaning of hammers as needed.
I start (when I can a day in advance) by putting a drop of rubbing 
alcohol on each of the string grooves on the hammers to un-compact 
the felt a little.  Some do a moist (not wet) rag and a quick pass 
with an iron.  (Careful here, too much on some old uprights and you 
will have something resembling cotton balls...don't ask.)  This does 
get the whole hammer whereas the dropper method targets the affected area.

Then file away to re-shape the hammers (if flattened) to a strike 
point as opposed to a strike zone.  You will end up getting rid of 
any deep string grooves but that isn't the point of re-shaping (don't 
flatten a hammer to de-groove).  Get that nifty hammer shaping tool 
from Mother Goose and then fit the hammers to the strings.  Ie. when 
the hammer is lightly pressed against the strings, plucking will not 
reveal an open string.  (This fitting will reduce noise and tuning 
problems (phase beating) in uprights to an extent that is rewarding, 
surprising really.)

Then needle voice.  Schaff sells a tool with a swivel head that 
allows voicing in the piano.

Andrew

At 04:39 PM 8/3/2006, you wrote:
>Hi List,
>
>Would anyone be willing to share their procedure for voicing hammers 
>in and upright action?
>
>I'ver never done it before. Voicing on a grand seems somewhat more 
>practical, since it is easy enough to slide the action in and out. 
>But it seems like a hassle to take the action out in between 
>listening in order to needle the hammers bottomsides.
>
>Thanks,
>Ed
>