Listen to Craig Brougher about upright hammers -- he knows what he's
talking about!  I didn't believe him until I ran into the same problem.

Enter one 1913 Foster & Co. player upright I had restrung a few years
earlier.  This piano got a replacement plate and a new pinblock, and
after all that work I was hoping that the best possible tone could
be realized.  After all, I had reconfigured the scale, calculated the
tension and the "I" factors with a computer program, and thought I had
came up with the best wire diameters that the old plate casting would
allow.

When I first chipped it, I reinstalled the old piano action.  I used it
that way for a while; it sounded very "nice", but the old pithy hammers
soon wore out.  The treble felt had worn through the wood in places,
and there wasn't enough felt left for reshaping.

Like many others, I had simply ordered a "pre-drilled" set of hammers,
and glued them on new butts, while keeping the striking points even.
Immediately after reinstalling the action, I realized something was
terribly wrong: the new set sounded far worse that the originals did,
and the piano did not have any dynamics to speak of.  Playing it harder
would not make it any louder, and the tone was muddy and faint.

Thinking I had a set of soft hammers, I lacquered them.  This helped a
bit, but it also made the high treble "clack".  I raised and lowered
the action in a frantic attempt to find the correct striking point, but
it only made things worse.

I then remembered that Craig told me over the phone that upright hammers
have a bit of downward "pitch" angle.  After finding out about this,
I inspected a spare piano action I had in the shop -- sure enough, he
was right!

There was only one thing to do, if there were any hopes of getting the
tone back: redo the whole job, and make some wooden jigs for the drill
press to duplicate the angle for new _undrilled_ hammers.  It did the
trick.  There is no question in my mind.

It would have saved me $170 and a week's worth of time if I had just
listened to Craig.  "Pass the humble pie, please!"

Andy Taylor
Tempola Music Rolls