Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Which pianos use Renner blue hammers?

I tried doing a google search but can't find the Renner website. I know Mason Hamlin and Estonia use these hammers and was under the impression that many of the top European makers also use them.

One of the reasons I'm curious is that the tech in a high end piano store told me today that they were poor hammers. I believe the store uses mostly Steinway hammers although it is not Steinway Hall.

You couldn't have tried very hard.

http://www.rennerusa.com/

Yes, Renner blues are very poor hammers.

I found the renner usa site but I didn't see any information about Renner blues. I couldn't find the European Renner site which is the one that may have info about their hammers.

Thanks for posting that link, gryphon. When you click a few times to get to the description of the hammers, they have a diagram of three different types of Renner blue premium hammers (standard molding, longer molding, and universal molding). I didn't realize these different types exist, and now I'm curious as to which are on my piano. Very interesting!

Try this page here.

Thanks but I'm still trying to find out which pianos use these blues.

Renner doesn't state which pianos use which hammers. Sometimes that changes. Hammers are selected not only by price but by suitability for the particular application (scale design, etc.)

Just because piano A uses one hammer and piano B uses another in no way implies one is inferior to the other.

Your first clue should have been the salesweasel implying that anything other than Steinway hammers are junk.

Ask him if NY Steinways and Hamburg Steinways use the same hammers. I don't think they do.

Or write, apparently.

I initially wrote that Steinway Hamburg uses renner hammers. It then occured to me that I didn't know this for certain, so right away I deleted the contents of the post, until I could do a little check to confirm.

In any case, Steinway Hamburg, does use renner hammers, but to their own specs. They do not use renner blues.

Steinway NY, ofcourse, uses their own hammer.

Rich

Which, of course, contradicts Steinway claim that lacquering soft hammers is the only way to achieve the "Steinway sound".

Derick

The Steinway folks describe it as the 'NY Steinway sound'

Oh. I didn't know they put in a "NY" qualifier. I won't forget it now. Thanks.

Derick

Knabe uses them too.
That's three...

From an old RennerUSA catalog from 1994: "The Premium Blue hammer is a special execution designed and produced for North America, and are ideal for every high quality piano, European or American, particularly the great vintage American pianos produced in the past... represent a careful recreation of the great hammers originally used by American piano makers early in this century."

The Premium Blue hammer as far as I know was created in the early 1990s at the behest of Lloyd Meyer, a former president of Steinway during the CBS era, who at that time started and owns RennerUSA, a company that imports and markets Renner parts in North America, as a hammer to be marketed to rebuilders for use on Steinways and other vintage American pianos.

Whether they actually "represent a careful recreation of the great hammers originally used by American piano makers" is a matter for debate. Many rebuilders swear by them, others swear at them. They are a modern hard, hot pressed hammer and while they may be a very nice hammer for some European pianos, I hardly think of them as having much in common with the vintage American hammers they were originally touted as being a replacement for.

Niles Duncan
Piano technician/rebuilder, Pasadena, CA
www.pianosource.com

Unfortunately, Baldwin specifies Renner Blues now, which, in my opinion, are too bright and rob these fine pianos of their intended sound. Hopefully, the restoration project on my own Baldwin Model L will get underway soon. The replacement hammers will be Ronsen Wurzen, not Renner Blues.

Does anyone know which hammers are used on Bechstein, Bluthner, Boesendorfer, Fazioli, Steingraeber, Sauter, Foester, Grotrian etc.?

I have heard several recordings that used the Ari Isaac "Cadenza" hammers, and they sounded great.

http://www.pin.ca/ari/voice.htm

GP

My Pramberger JP-185 has blues.