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Hi all! Well I was down in my great grandfathers piano shop today and I found a used set of Steinway Grand Hammers. I filed them today to get the string grooves out (virtually none) and put some hammer solidifier on all of them to get them all to a uniform tone. Only question is, how much should I sell them for? What's a fair price for any of you, besides free d:, realistic prices. Thanks!

Um, why would anyone want used hammers? Labor cost for installation is the same as new.

Someone called me the other day wanting to buy used piano strings to save $$$ I've never been asked for used strings before.

Hmmm. I've been trying to remember just how many sets of used Steinway grand piano hammers I've tossed out over the years. Certainly hundreds of them. And now I find out I should have filed them, soaked them with lacquer and sold them?

Seriously, they have no value unless you can find someone to buy them who doesn't know any better.

Seriously, is this a serious question?

ddf

May be they could interest a collector ?

As mounting old tires on a car

How do you know they were not of a uniform tone? You've only made they harder and brighter. I have salvaged hammer sets to replace worn sets for someone with limited income but generally these old sets are already bright, you may have put them over the edge. Never add a solution to a hammer without listening to the tone it produces.

In a less than ideal world, something to remember about old parts 'n things in general - as unrealistic and unimaginable as it may seem to us - for someone, somewhere, it's an upgrade or improvement. The hammers in question have no value to us whatsoever. To someone in a poor area or country, such could be "worth their weight in gold." Pianos of all kinds are found in the most unlikely places.

sure , I do not put re-usable parts to trash for that reason, but selling them ? someone yet have paid for them.

hardening old hammers is also probably ruining them, as said Mr Page.

Who the heck would buy used hammers? If they weren't good enough to stay on the piano they came off of, why would they be good enough to go on another? $0.00

There was someone here who posted in the past year about buying a set of used Steinway hammers and adapting them for another piano.

Well they were good enough to come off otherwise grandpa wouldn't have saved them. I'm sure the laquer didn't do anything. It was such a small amount, and I only put a little from 28 to 54 seeing as that's the most commonly played section.

When the hammers in question are properly installed and completely regulated, and the piano is fine tuned, you'll know how these sound and how to proceed with voicing - if, indeed, the hammers are capable of being voiced. Often old hammers are spent**. Until then, it's sheer speculation.


**This can be determined without going through the trouble of installing.

I must admit that I was intrigued by the idea of laquering hammers before there was any way to determine if the treatment was needed.

I also suspect verdigris in the bushings from an action of this vintage.

Same here. How does the OP know their tone is now "uniform?" Or, better yet, how did he know it wasn't prior to lacquering?

In New York, this fella does quite well selling used hammers and other parts:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/av2you/m.ht...203&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Hmmm. One of my personal horror-stories was a Steinway M from the 50's...which an unscrupulous 'rebuilder' in the early 80's 'rebuilt' by replacing the hammers with ...I am not kidding.... a used set of Teflon-era hammers and shanks that were 'like new'. The middle and top were full of that tiny little 'click' and 'tink' of the Teflon bushings rattling in the shanks. Brilliant, not.

This lovely piano 50's instrument had a set of 'Perma-Click' hammers put into it! I'm guessing that the rebuilder looked at that set of slightly used hammers and went 'What the Heck?' and saved himself a thousand bucks and reached into the discard bin to use those things. Of course....when I saw it shortly after it returned to the owner I had to explain that the job had been done incorrectly, and the owner had to argue with the 'rebuilder' over the changed hammer set. Since the bill specified 'new hammers/shanks/flanges' it was a no-brainer...and did not have to go to court.

I don't know how old 'Great Grandpa's' hammers are...but I'd look at those flanges and see if he just couldn't get himself to throw out a set of lovely looking hammers, because they were TEFLON-era and maybe he thought he might rebush the dang things...someday...which never came. Are the bushings plastic/teflon? Or standard red-bushing cloth? Might be why a good looking set of hammers were on the shelf, gents.

Seen it,
Been there,
Don't Do That!
Respectfully,

Hey I so often have heard that it was said to the tech that the old felts where so much better than the new ones... that they need to be kept. Very convenient to avoid any hammer repair, while I admit it may be true in regard of damper felt , and even exceptionally with some very old hammer felts (80 years or so)

Anyway it is a nonsense to try to use old hammers, unless it is a desesperate situation, but then it is out of question to pay for them, pay for the job eventually I can imagine some cases.

"I install Steinway hammers on your Shimmel, your Petrof, whatever" I have met the result sometime. With some imagination the customer believe that his piano sound better, but you an I know what it is about.

We may be faced here with a level of "rebuilder's intuition" that I have not yet attained.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
Got it!