Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum hammer felts or hammer replacement ?

Hello I have a question regarding hammer felt replacemnet.
Is there a way to replace just the hammer felt instead of whole hammer head.I just need to replace the highest octave on 1881 erard grand which for some reason is very worn out but the rest of the keyboard is in good shape and I would like to preserve the original hammers.
I looked around the net and searched on youtube but found nothing about replacing just the felt . Thank you

If the top octave is worn out you can bet the rest need replacing also. Wear is noticed most in the high registers because of the lack of felt, but when you consider that the middle register is played most, it stands to reason that if the top is badly worn, then the rest must also be.

It is very unlikely that you will be able to obtain a new set of hammer heads, unless they can be made as a special (and very costly) order by a specialist, but not too difficult to get them recovered ... as a whole set.

You can glue buckskin over the existing felt.

I also know someone who makes hammers. He probably could do it but it wouldn't be cheap. He charges $800CAD for a custom set of hammers. He probably could use the original heads and do just the treble.

Search results for Christopher Clarke in Veron, France. He has a Pinet hammer machine and can reproduce the hammers you need.

Olaf Tamm can put you in contact with him or Robert Brown; both found at links on the same page.

If you want to email me directly from my web site icon I have email address for him.

Résultats de la recherche

There are hammer manufacturers in Europe that recover hammers. I think Abel does.

Yes, as Jon says, Abel will recover hammers.

I got a quote for recovering mine, but the cost was about 50% higher than getting all new hammers, so I went for new ones.

The OP is referring to an 1881 erard grand. Not sure if Abel can make the specialized hammers that go into the early French machines like the Pleyel or the Erard.

Hi ,Thank you very much all for the advice and information


I believe the wear is mostly in the last ocktav

http://imgur.com/XxrguHN

the rest looks in very good condition to me (but then again I don't know much)be curious to know

http://imgur.com/HWGO4Re

http://imgur.com/2xyQAGz

Yes. The hammers you will need are made on this machine, recreated by Christopher Clarke from the original machine found in the "cite d ela musique" Paris

Go forward and back using the arrows underneath each photo.

Pinet

The Erard machine is a little different, the felt is tense with a pedal and weights, then each hammer is installed in a wooden caul/clamp till the glue sets. (85 cauls) Desfougeres, near Paris, use that machine to glue a new felt strip on each hammer.

There is a Web site.

http://www.les-ateliers-desfougeres.com/GB/index.html

Best regards.

Looking at the pics in the treble the hammers have been refelted yet and the leather changed. they are thinner than the original ones, seem to me.
Possibly all the hammers have been covered but the leather of the "checks" are originals (grayish white)in mediums , and new (fluffy light brown skin)in the treble.

it is often necessary to change the leather at the same time the hammers are recovered.

Hammer recovering is done since a long time in France, there where more companies doing so before WWII.

It is difficult to tell which design these erard hammer shanks are. There are two types which are forked at the hammer head end and another which although completely different from modern designs, terminates in the normal way of todays grands.

If it is the type that terminates in the normal round shank style, then it might be possible to simply buy a new set of hammer heads to fit or just a normal recovering job. Otherwise it seems to be down to a specialist job of recovering which requires early keyboard type specialism.

A word of warning though.... should the shanks get damaged, they are going to be very expensive to replace!

Wow,mashine for hammers. The world of piano restoration doesn't stop to surprize .
It's fascinating all those inventions ,so I imagine is kind of tricky to glue and pin the felt around the hammer without such a mashine.
I will have to research those french sites ,thank you guys
Could you tell by the pics the condition of the hammers ?

Thank you Olek ,sorry I somehow missed that part of your response after I went looking at desforges link ,so as you say they been refelted does it mean that I only need to replace the worn out ones(+-last octav)instead of the whole set?

Partial sets never voice very well. The correct way to do this is to replace all the felt, or whatever material it is that should be covering the hammers.

Thank you Johnkie, They are forked shanks so I fear the prospect of changing the hammer heads to fit on those and might be quite costly sending them away to the specialist.

I never heard ofa partial change of the hammer felt. Technically possible of course, but the cost may not differ very much from the whole set, as the felt strips used are intended for a whole set (as most piano parts)

On a 1984 grand you could use the (thin) bucksin solution, but blending the tone with the rest will not be easy. Older models had leather on all the heads but not in 1848.

New hammers are too different, even if a solution for the more recent models, and anyway with that type of Erard shank they cannot be used.

I really never seen so thin high treble hammers on an old Erard (felt thickness)

If they have been recovered it have been done by a professional, with new staples. Look for a stamp on the sides of the first bass hammers, the hammer recovering guys leave their most often (if not it is an inquiry from the tech as they work as subcontractors)

I would go for whole set replacement and I probably will do in the future and that desforges atelier hammers is the final solution I guess,for now I would just like to play it .
I have already done time consuming ivory change and haven't shaved for a long time,
so I was thinking a quick fix on that last octave just so I can enjoy the piano since as it is, it sounds too bright and harsh.
Probably will find similar felt and glue and staple it around the hammers using some kind of homemade jig ,thanks again for help.

in that case , try thin leather first. treble hammers need to be very dense, anyway. you may also wish to try to move a little the action toward the tail of the piano. sometime 1 mm does a lot, and if the right block have enough wear, the action is not in its best location now (the left pedal push it toward you)

a thin felt will never be good, it need to be hammer felt, tense and often hardened with impregnation products so the hammer rebound is fast enough.

I will experiment with materials and see which works best ,the only problem I see is the stample,I will look around the brico magazins if there is some kind of similar size stampler ,thanks