Hello,

Has anyone experience with the effect of extended use of the mute bar on the life expectancy and voicing needs of hammers?

My thinking is that extended/extensive use of the mute bar (in the lowered position - duh) would reduce the indention of strings into the hammer's felt, thereby extending the life of the hammers and possibly reducing the need for periodic voicing.

Your thoughts please.

Any material placed in front of the strike point on a hammer set will reduce wear of the hammer, not just felt.

But then of course you are wearing through the felt on the bar and that will have to be replaced…… the muting bar assembly was never installed for the purpose of reducing wear on a hammer set……..

As the instrument is played with a certain pattern (playing the same music or songs) this will cause the felt on the bar to wear out in certain places and not in others. The result will be un-even wear of the hammer set just like not using the bar. So the end result will be the same, just taking longer to achieve…..

The result is the same, except for the fact that you can replace the mute felt maybe 50 times for the price of replacing the hammers once. So do not feel bad about wearing it down, and just get it replaced when it needs it.

Oh darn, I was thinkin I could just hook a long sheet of sandpaper to that mute bar and gang file the hammers when the time came.