Voicing down hammers

[David Love]

Straight acetone will actually make them harder.  In fact, you can use it to
bring up the tone just slightly on a set that's slightly soft.  I suppose it
causes the felt to shrink a bit.

I vote for changing them.  After you take them off you can cut them open and
look for fossils.  Short of that you can soak them in isopropyl alcohol (30%
H2O type) which will cause them to balloon a bit but tends to make the tone
soft and dead rather than hard and dead.  Or you can try the Vise-Grips
method, as Jon mentioned.  Or a combination, soak plus steam plus Vise Grips
which will make them softer though they still won't sound good and you may
end up changing them anyway.  

David Love
davidlovepianos at comcast.net 
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Phil Bondi
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 2:42 PM
To: Newtonville
Subject: Voicing down hammers

Hi all.

I recently met up with a set of Imadegawas that 
needed to 'whisper'. The reason for the whisper 
is because there's a player system attached to 
it, and of course, it's too loud.

I was surprised at how much Acetone and 
Controlled Steam voicing these hammers were able 
to take...but.

They're still as hard as concrete and they're 
not whispering yet. They're still too hard for 
needles. I soaked the hammers 4x in Acetone and 
steamed them 4x and 5x in the bass.

That seems like alot for any hammer to take, and 
they're still rock hard.

Any suggestions..short of changing them out, 
which is not an option?

Thanks,

-Phil Bondi(Fl)