Yay!

Thank you for your kind words!

Awesome! Thank you for your kind words, glad I could help.

I appreciate the comments, thank you for watching!

Thanks! 😆

I've been waiting for months for my piano technician to come but nothing he's busy

Hey

The tools are probably cheaper than what the piano tuner/ technician would charge. You should try it

I’ve never had a problem accessing the entire hammer, just takes some practice. It’s even easier in a grand since you can just pull the action, turn it around, and place it back in the piano to work on it. You run the risk of damaging, losing, or misaligning things not to mention the time it takes to do it properly. And, not everyone can afford to have the entire action rebuilt just because it needs a voicing.

@@michaelbarrett3926 Where there's not much wear on the hammers, and you're only having to voice, of course with an upright you just voice in situ - though sometimes one needs to tilt the action back for access. HOWEVER: Where re-facing is required, due to wear and flattening of the hammer, to get the correct profile, one often has to take some felt off the shoulders. To do this properly on an upright, each hammer has to be taken off. If you're none to fussed about getting back the correct profile of each hammer, then that's up to you, but I like to maintain the highest standard of work that I'm able to do. As for re-alignment of hammers, in an upright with butt plates - assuming the alignment was correct in the first place - then that's not an issue. Although, if the hammers were not correctly aligned in the first place, it's essential to re-align, which in any case necessitates the removal of the dampers and the levers (whippens) in order to be able to align without risking breaking any of the whippens/jacks. But when doing an action rebuild on an upright which does have butt plates, as we know, the hammers have to be put back on first, and aligned with the strings, prior to then putting back the levers (or whippens as you call them) and aligning the jacks with the butt notches and then replacing the dampers and aligning them properly too. It has been my experience that if hammers have enough wear to necessitate re-facing, more often than not one has to replace return tapes and replace the balance hammer leathers at the same time. However, I do take your point about the expense - therefore the owner of the piano has to weigh up for themselves how much they want or can afford to have done on their piano. Certainly some cases are 'borderline,' where in an ideal world one would re-face prior to voicing - which is of course my usual practice. But where there is not too much wear/flattening of hammer felts, one can just voice the hammers. I did this a few days ago for a customer with a Welmar 5' 6" grand (in essence a Bluthner grand with a different name on the fall-lid, the frame design being identical to Bluthner). My customer was pleased to avoid too much expense, and the wear on the hammers wa mimimal. I've had 46 years experience as a piano tuner/technician.

​@@timelwell7002Well, I am also a piano tuner / technician in the UK with 40 + years experience. I have never heard a wippen (standard UK spelling, was officially 'whippen' in the USA until their ptg decreed they should drop the 'h') simply referred to as a 'lever'. Also, the method of voicing here is not what you would use on a concert grand in a large venue I agree, but it doesn't claim to be. This method ('granny voicing' of old pianos) is regarded as 'standard practice' among all the technicians I know, for old uprights. Especially where the cost of more precise work, or new hammers, is not warranted, or where it would exceed the value of the piano or the size of the customer's purse. It's a method I learned as an apprentice many years ago. I was also taught that the goal of a piano tuner / technician is to make the piano sound as pleasing to the customer's ear as is possible taking into account 1. the type of music they play (which may affect whether you tune to equal or a 'period' temperament). 2. the condition of the instrument 3. how much the customer can afford to pay 4. how the piano is to be used (public or private, moved regularly or static etc) and 5. the environment in which the piano is (usually) situated. In my opinion, and how I was taught, you can't just deal with the piano alone and insist on only doing the absolute best thing for just the instrument without including all the other factors of piano ownership. I've successfully used the method shown in this video for years with no negative issues and very positive feedback from customers. Of course, I wouldn't use it on the concert grand piano in our City hall etc, but that is a very different situation and not one that this video is suggesting should be used in such a case!

@@DAVE121063 I understand very well that working on, say a modest upright in someone's home, and played by an average ability pianist, is a different scenario from restoring a Concert Grand for an Arts Centre, etc. I also understand very well that some customers are able to pay for full restoration, where others have to work to a budget. That said, if hammers are rather worn, sometimes return tapes might be perished and in danger of breaking, and balance hammer leathers may also be worn. And as often as not, hammers, levers and jacks might be sticking, or perhaps loose, and re-centring of hammers/flanges, levers/flanges and levers/jacks may be needed (Dampers/flanges likewise). Thus it is often the case that the action will need to be dismantled anyway, in which case I'd re-face hammers individually if/as required and agreed with the customer. And if a piano is, say, an old over-damped design, it is often not cost effective to do much work on the piano at all - though if the instrument is of great sentimental value, and if the customer wishes, I'm happy to do whatever they wish me to do, just so long as they understand that undertaking a lot of work would not be cost-effective as such. I just wonder if you can achieve a good enough result by re-facing hammers several at a time and in situ? Do you find that you can take enough felt off the shoulders of each hammer to get somewhere close to a decent profile?

Thank you!

Thank you!

You're welcome

I’ll use extra material sometimes in the high treble where the strings have made it through to the wood core. But, attaching anything leads to having to use some sort of adhesive which usually stiffens the surface and has a brightening effect.

Sorry for the late response, it never notified me of your message! If you're still considering it I'd say if you're handy give it a go. It's your piano but just do a little bit at a time until it's where you want it. It's hard to undo a voicing.

You’ll only flatten the strike point if that’s all you sand. But they need the grooves filed out of them, otherwise there’s no point to sanding them in the first place. I start on one shoulder and work my way across the strike point to the other shoulder, maintaining the egg shape of the hammer. Depending on the quality of the felt I may need to work the shoulder I ended on back the other way a bit to make it look better. This is the way Yamaha trained me to do it many years ago.

That's a great book. Is the hammer bouncing off the strings and hitting a few times rapidly?

Thank you! typically the only times I encounter someone wanting to make it a lot brighter is maybe a church or a concert hall where they just want it louder. I hate recommending doing that because you usually end up having to lacquer the hammers which I don't like to do. There are ways to subtly brighten the tone and I do plan on covering those in a future video. Thanks for watching!

@@MrPianoTech when they get sold to a residence later ! ETC

Never tried it. Might have unpredictable effect on the felt adhesive.

Thanks for watching! I believe there is both an 80 and 120 grit file, I use the lower grit 80, works much faster. Pianotek Supply is where I get mine from.

@@MrPianoTech Perfect, thank you sir!

@@awride01 no problem!

What do you do to make soft hammers sound brighter ?

Thanks for watching! Just because there’s not much/any benefit. If you remove the action you’ll still bring all the rest of the parts with you so you can’t get away from getting felt dust in the action. Also, the piano will hold the action and hammers much more stable than you can on anything else you put it on. Another reason is the dampers will still be in your way so you can’t get a better angle on the hammers until you get to the treble section without them. Lastly, a lot of upright pianos I encounter that need voicing are spinets with drop actions, those can be a real pain to remove including tying up the drop action stickers, so I avoid removing them unless totally necessary. Just some of my reasons, over the years I found I get the same or better results not pulling the action and I have never had any problems leaving it in.

@@MrPianoTech Thanks so much for your reply. That makes complete sense and I shall be adopting that strategy from now. Thank you.

@@pds002 Happy to help!

Thank you! Never used it before. I’m only familiar with the hardener to brighten the tone but I never use it.

It should last a while if the hammers are being filed as well as needled. If this has been done a few times it may be time for a new set of hammers.

Hello Bhavesh, thank you for watching! I find that it lasts at least until the next tuning, usually six months. I will usually touch up the voicing a little when I see them next but it won't need as much as the first time. Typically I will tune it before I voice it.

@@MrPianoTechThank you so much for your response. Really appreciate. 🙏 Just need to know that do you teach piano maintenance/Tuning and rebuild work? If yes then let me know because I am really interested as in my country there’s no option. Thank you! 🙏

It's very possible it's the voicing, voicing will have a big impact on tone. A qualified technician will be able to determine the cause and the best way to go about altering the tone for you. In my experience voicing is the #1 way to get rid of a "tinny" or "nasally" tone.

Sounds like. You should be able to just needle the felt a little to bring it down to match the others.

@@MrPianoTech Woah, thanks for your prompt reply. Nice video btw. I need to do some filling on my older upright I decided to keep as well. It’s about 20 years old, great tone for what it is, but the treble hammers have those grooves and some are slightly unaligned. I’m going to rely on your techniques and the Reblitz book, at least on the old one, wouldn’t touch the new for training purposes. You got a new subscriber, thank you!

@@gegervary Thanks for watching, glad you're finding it useful! Let me know if you run into any problems you need help with.

Thank you for watching! Check the condition of the front of the hammers. If it's already pretty quiet the front of the hammers may be damaged to the point where they need to be reshaped which should brighten the tone back up. So see if the front of the hammers are very soft right now.

Thank you for watching! For a quick fix you can do without the filing but I recommend getting down to fresh felt first.

@@MrPianoTech Thanks for the expert advice.

Thank you for watching! So technically you shouldn't needle the very front of the hammer directly on the strike point. The reason why is it can, very quickly, deaden the tone so much that the hammer could become useless with pretty much no tone at all. So you'll want to needle just to the top and bottom of the strike point at about a 45 degree angle toward the tail, so if you're needling on top of the strike point you'd be angling down with the needles. Grand hammers are much easier to get to, with uprights however, I rarely need to access the entire hammer to needle underneath the strike point. What I usually do is kind of "cut across" the strike point from the the top so that when the needle enters the hammer felt it will pass through the strike point but at a point deeper in the felt. I do it at about a 45 degree angle.

Woah! You watch this guy too?? (At least a year ago)

@@probablyblue426 Yep. And a whole lot of others. Most of what I know how to do these days I learn on KZfaq ;-)

@@emerywang Well, I will say I am interested in diy tech stuff :)

Not sure why someone would suggest not to reshape the part of the hammer where the problem is 🤔. All of the groves should be removed. Just make sure not to shave it flat but keep an egg shape to it.

@@MrPianoTech no suggestion that it shouldn't be done, as I wrote they were referring explicitly to not doing so *initially*, i.e. leaving it until a later stage, possibly to facilitate mating hammers with strings. Perhaps a minor point or even a matter of preference :)

@@arnopr Yeah, I don't see any reason to leave it until last. In fact, that's the first thing I do grand or upright.

@@MrPianoTech Interesting. Cheers!