Restoration of Schimmel 208 piano - Hammer selection

P.S. I forgot to write that re-weighting is also included in that estimate. While performing the inspection during regulation, it was noticed that the weights in the keys were removed, the key was drilled 6-7 centimeters further forward and re-leaded, which is an anomaly.

Summarizing

- Hammer rail re-felting/pre-voicing Abel

- Repetitions (rullini)

- Hammer regulating screws (paramartelli)

- Re-weighting

- Dampers (smorzi)

- Labor

approximately 2500 euros

Renner re-felting costs 400 euros.

I don't understand the point of this type of intervention given that the original hammer rail used on the Schimmel 208 can be found in the catalog.

Re-felting makes sense when a hammer with the same characteristics as the original can no longer be found...

Of course, gluing on a new hammer rail requires more man-hours.

I also didn't understand the weighting intervention if the hammer rail remains the same.... Or why it was done.

Probably they want to use Abel felt to make it sound less and hope for the elimination of the defect (that piano wasn't born with Abel felt)

The hammer flange lasts 100 years, so I really don't understand replacing them on a young piano ...

Best wishes

We are at the usual free exercise of delinquency.

I agree with Fra, and most likely your hammers were clumsily impregnated with nitro; they become metallic continuously, it's normal.

I advise you to contact Renner, whose catalog lists all the original hammer heads for your Schimmel.

Avoid anything that might arrive from Abel production, unless you want to give up the sound of your piano entirely.

Abel components, enthusiastically provided by technicians, are not original components.

@Fra

The re-weighting should serve to return the instrument to its originality. He says he didn't understand why the lead weighting had been redone at another point on the key, reinforcing it in a place that has nothing to do with the factory design.
If I understood correctly, he said that in his opinion, the operation was done to have the same weight throughout the keyboard, whereas it is actually normal for the treble section, in all pianos, to be slightly lighter than the rest of the keyboard, and therefore it was an improper intervention.

Anyway, it seems that the keyboard was shaved in the past, but to me it seems there is enough felt, although I don't know how much there was originally, and I find it very hard. I want to take some photos, although I wouldn't want to remove the action before he comes to check the spring issue.

He said instead that the re-felting and pre-regulation cost more...... rather than the replacement of the hammers, I don't know.
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@Davehammerklavier

I will ask if the other parts he installs for me are also original Renner; if you say that installing an original hammer assembly, rather than re-felting it (also from Renner), is better, I will request it. More than anything, he probably has it re-felted perhaps to have it already pre-regulated.
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@Fra
@Dave

Regarding the issue of the hammer rails, he said that with the new hammer assembly they could cause problems. The piano is about 20 years old but he says it looks older; the mechanical part is quite worn, in theory he says it should be completely rebuilt, but despite this, according to him, it is a great piano.
Serial number 310.109, it was a piano that was used for many years for rental, however, the soundboard has held up very well against fluctuations.
It should be early 90s, I cannot establish the precise date, I saw from here http://www.besbrodep...er/schimmel.htm

Criminality... I really think I overpaid for it, I have owned it for two years, "I am convinced" that whoever sold it to me (my "trusted" technician) was aware of all the work that needed to be done, price? 16,000 euros.

Among other things, I wanted to trade it in now; they told me that a shop here was selling a Steinway B-220 for the price of 24,000 euros. Aside from the fact that when I called again to ask if they had looked into my model, he increased the price to 26,000 ahaha, he says that my piano plus 8,000 euros is not what he values it at, half of what I paid two years ago; he didn't even want to come to see it, yes, in the dark, because he says he understood which model it is, it's a difficult model to sell, it's matte black with wood grain and not polished black etc.....
I think I got a great rip-off, and if I did, what sold it to me should be reported, evidently at double the price,
Criminality everywhere...

What do you all say?

I say they have made a huge mess....

Redoing the entire mechanics on a 20-year-old piano? I don't believe it....

Regarding the fact that there is so much felt, I believe it since the instrument features a Renner of the maximum size (size 6)

The weighting might have been done at the request of the previous owner who wanted it heavier... also because I don't think there is anything nymphomaniacal about a new Schimmel.

Refelting costs 400 euros, a Renner hammer felt for that piano about 350 euros.. The difference lies in the labor hours, few if you refelt, more if you glue on a new hammer felt.... furthermore, performing operations on the felts before having heard how the hammer sounds (I am referring to what they call pre-voicing or rough voicing), what is the point??? For me, none! Today there is too much abuse of the needle, sometimes in an inappropriate manner because "it looks cool" and with results that are not very satisfying from a musical point of view; more and more often I hear pianos prepared even for important concerts that are totally unbalanced between lows and highs, it doesn't sink in that what you hear sitting at the keyboard is different from what you hear from 20 meters away.... I find it wrong to perform operations on the timbre while listening poorly or from the wrong place, let alone before listening!

It is not a professional attitude .... And then if one had to go back, what do you do? Harden the hammer? It would be like going to the orthopedist while healthy, hitting yourself on the femur just to get put in a cast to justify a professional performance....

Did he listen to the strings without striking them with the hammers? I wouldn't want that after changing the hammer felt it turns out that nothing has changed; I say this because I have recently come across fanciful expert reports on alleged incorrect percussion points following the replacement of the hammer felt on a piano that became voiceless. It's a shame that besides the hammer felt, they had also installed a new tailpiece with low strings that were totally dead!

The Steinway B is 211 not 220

Extracting (with due care) the action does not involve any changes. If you could kindly take a few photographs of your situation, we might be able to tell you something more precisely, so as to better guide you when the technician arrives.

In any case, I don't see the utility of re-felting, not to mention that re-felted hammers are softer than a new hammer felt.

If desired, without excessive surcharges and to "bypass" the intervention of untrustworthy hands, Renner can drill the new hammers and prepare the tails based on your piano model or even through your samples. At that point, all that remains is to glue them on.

Given the young age of the instrument, I would install the new Renner hammer felt.

First of all, I would like to suggest to Davehammerklavier to use judgments—yes, even personally negative ones—but without offending those who practice professions. Each of us has the right to express our opinions on this Forum, but with due respect for those who practice a profession or at least attempt to.

Let's start with the Technician: Every Technician develops their own costs, within certain limits, and in accordance with the hours of work required for the intervention. Installing a new hammer rail requires great competence, whether after re-felting or with new heads to be glued or already mounted on shanks. The weights, dynamics, shank travel adjustments, etc... require expertise. I often read that many of us want to get down to the "bone" of costs, simply calculating the value of supply costs. I do not believe this leads us to evaluate the quality of an intervention.

So, I can say that I personally am also against it, in this case regarding re-felting. In this case, as in most cases for grands, it is better to mount a new hammer rail on new shanks. Two advantages: first, having new hammer cores, new pins, and new hammers. Second, preserving the original hammer rail already mounted (which should never be thrown away!!!!!!)

Regarding Abel hammers, I would not head ruthlessly toward negative advertising. Abel has a large factory and is attentive to different types of felt quality as well as compressions, shapes, and weights. They are establishing themselves well in Germany and Europe... and not just for a matter of price, which can vary depending on the required design data. We can speak of excellent qualities and different construction "philosophies." Hammers with a prior definition of the compression state may require very little voicing, and this is an advantage, not only for the intervention times, but above all because the practice of voicing is not very "well-known" and is arduous. With incorrect voicing, you can throw away a complete set of hammers!!!!! Naturally, Renner or others may start from different perspectives. Renner rails are fantastic, no question, but of a different manufacture. Now, the important thing is trust in the competent person, who should be the Technician. He must have a hammer rail reproduced with the same characteristics, shapes, and weight. The balance must deviate little from the original. This is my opinion.

I hear talk of hammer dampers and dampers. Is the piano not that young then?! If so, together with the hammers, one must check the strings and see if it is worth perhaps replacing the "cantabile" area. Good choices and good work Mephisto 93

I fully agree with the Maestro's speech, but I would like to emphasize, correct me if I am wrong, that I do not believe I have offended anyone in the slightest. (I prefer facts over offenses)

Regarding Abel, as I have already mentioned, I come from an assiduous use of those products. However, no important factory installs Abel and after switching to Renner, I independently understood the reason for this "preference"...

I do not believe that negative publicity is being created, but rather just free information regarding experiences that are starting to be somewhat obvious to everyone. This negative publicity is instead conducted and perpetrated by those who, once upon a time, had the Renner concession and today, no longer having it and seeking different courses in the business, badmouth and defame Renner at every opportunity.

While maintaining that I have no relationship of mutual interest with Renner, I find that their components (both in terms of tonal characteristics and workmanship) are incomparable and technically superior to Abel. There is no comparison.

Then, if one wants grand pianos that sound like uprights, that is another story... de gustibus...

"We are at the usual free exercise of delinquency".......I feel like I read that, but perhaps I misinterpreted it? I would just prefer that assessments were not made with such "strong" words. Then again, everyone is free to express their own opinion, that much is understood, but with calmness and also, if they wish, with a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Doubt leaves room for different tastes and needs. Everyone desires a certain sound and pursues what corresponds to their own taste. Many choices can be "right" because they correspond to one's own taste. Isn't that so? Thank you.

I would like to assure with deep sincerity that there was nothing and there was no intention for anything strong in my expression, and I apologize for the fact that my wording, perhaps, was too abstract to be understood in its intention.

As Socrates maintained, truth is relative, absolute falsehood is not. I am convinced that Mephisto is a student who has been, against his will, the object (to use legal terminology, so as not to offend anyone) of "fraudulent exploitation of an incapacitated person," a technique very widespread today among certain technicians.

Agreed. I think, however, that there can be many factors leading to a choice, a choice that we cannot and must not judge as absolutely false or wrong. We can say, in my opinion, what we believe is best "according to us". It is up to the person receiving the suggestion to reflect and choose to have their own experiences. I too have sometimes expressed myself in a "definitive" manner, but I think one should leave some margin. For example, one can replace or reflect a hammer rail, and both interventions can be valid. The choice also meets the spending limit and the discussion that arises between the technician and the pianist. The important thing is to know that different types of intervention correspond to different results. In this case, one would have needed to be present at the interview that led both parties to such choices.

Once, in my garden, I had decided to pave a small staircase with travertine "slabs". I was advised by two brothers who worked well and were quite inexpensive. At the end of the work, the "slabs" were all crooked. I pointed this out and they, without a word, tore down the work and redid everything from scratch. In the end, they were equally crooked. And yet, a straight wooden slat would have been enough to align them!!!!! Another bricklayer, who was also a site assistant, later came to my house for a renovation I had decided to carry out in my hobby room. It was a pleasure to watch him work. A spectacle. It was evident that he was an experienced craftsman and that he did not overlook details, regarding both substance and aesthetics. The previous craftsmen, in perfect good faith, had great limitations, despite applying excellent goodwill. So-called "low" work.

If I may take the liberty of suggesting here, the pianist can call a technician and test them, perhaps with a tuning or a regulation, before deciding to entrust them with more important work. And it is true, as Dave says, that some people "talk a lot". It is up to the pianist to know what is being discussed.

This is precisely the reason for my Tutorials. The pianist must not, of course, replace the expert Technician, but must know what he is doing to the instrument. Only then can they choose the type of intervention that is best "for them". Anyway, okay. The exchange of opinions and even ways of thinking is always positive.......Even if Socrates' phrase (whom I admire) is correct.......(think that the dog you see in the photo is named Socrates!!!!!)

Holy words... coming from bricklayers, they sound like a déjà vu to me...

I am sincerely sorry to have observed, both firsthand and by witnessing others, situations where in many—objectively too many—cases, the technician who intervened (normally considered serious people, "luminaries" and/or members of AIARP) has greatly transcended the limit that exists between what we call "the different possible choices" and "bad work passed off as perfect" (and not unintentionally due to incompetence, as the good-faith bricklayers of our master did, but due to a lack of desire to satisfy the client, due to unfortunate manual skill and, perhaps even more so, due to a lack of willingness to work).

I have personally been the subject of what can only be called rudeness towards the client who, in the end, has no real protection; they are also often seen as a pretentious nuisance, sometimes suffering from paranoid delusions, especially after the final payment for the service. I have lived through situations bordering on the deplorable, while being objectively/technically right. If a pin is off-axis relative to the pilot by several millimeters because the wrong one was chosen from the catalog, or if a hammer has been drilled at the wrong angle and then, perhaps, glued on crookedly as well, we cannot justify what is objectively "shoddy work" by saying that it is instead a possible choice or, worse, that it is "the technician's creative flair," especially if the piano no longer plays.

There are many optimal choices and results possible, even with the same components used, but if one wants to forcibly make acceptable or justify at all costs as good a professionalism that fully qualifies as sabotage, I am sorry, but it is highly condemnable.

I agree with what Paolo said... In general, barring rare exceptions, it is always wrong to judge a working colleague in a totally peremptory manner. My programming professor, who was much more than just a professor to me, used to tell me: "If we open the source code of a program created by one of our colleagues and notice serious discrepancies in the data flow and code cleanliness, we must never speak ill of it because we don't know how much time they had to complete it, under what conditions they had to complete it, and above all, how much they were paid to do it". Holy words, in my opinion... In the context of piano restoration, things do not change. Very often, achieving a sonic result requires a lot of time and money, even years. I still hold the idea that the acoustic quality of the environment also plays a very important role; in short, focusing on the quality of the instrument is fine, but our perception of a sound is influenced by a myriad of factors, always keeping in mind that "beautiful" or "ugly" sound, within certain limits, is a matter of subjective value.

I assure you that I played on a 160cm Samick with square hammers inside an auditorium with splendid acoustics and I had a wonderful time. I perceived a beautiful sound, with the right reverb. The acoustic quality of the environment is the variable, along with the quality of the piano, that puts the pianist in a position to give their best. If a pleasant sound is perceived, one is naturally led to express oneself with greater audacity, confidence, tranquility, open-mindedness, and consequently, feeling. I played the same piano prepared in an acoustic context for a Jazz recording and was totally disappointed by the sound. Let's therefore try to take the other variables into consideration as well. I would like it if Mephisto posted photos of the piano's positioning in the room and a photo of the entire room (just to get an idea of the size). I am convinced that even by taking the right precautions in positioning the piano in the room, the perception of this instrument's sound could change completely.

Pacific. But in the same way, a botched piercing is a botched piercing.

If a surgeon forgets an automatic stapler inside a patient's abdominal cavity, I don't think we would argue much about the time and conditions in which the "error" occurred...

Even when writing code, one must respect certain rules, not so much for the output it must return, but so that someone else can also work on it.

One must work according to the rules, regardless of the subject matter. The difference in time lies in the technician's skills; the client certainly should not be held responsible for it.

The example is not fitting: messy code can produce the right output, but sloppy work on a piano—incorrect or ugly to look at—never leads to good results.

Regardless of the quote, whoever accepts a job must take responsibility for it and not run away if something goes wrong: the client will no longer call that technician, nor any other technicians, because they will have lost trust.

As a life mentor of mine, who is also a master piano builder and technician, says: "the client is not a chicken to be plucked."

Speaking of easy targets, I confess that I have a weakness for a particular type of piano technician: the kind who is all gentle and obsequious before the intervention, but scurrilous and violent after, at the slightest observation regarding the (often terrible) work performed.

Once, a technician from Milan came to my place to tune my upright piano.

I didn't know anything about pianos at the time, but I saw him swearing at the instrument, moving from the right to the left of the piano, complaining that the sound was too violent, that it wouldn't stay steady, etc. etc.... He was sweating and cursing. He used the tuning hammer like a hoe and in the end, he shaved them down on the spot and brutally struck the hammers.... At the end of the intervention, the piano didn't play, and he asked me for 130 euros (two total hours of work)...

Probably that morning he had to tune another one, I don't know..... The fact is that he ruined the hammer rail so much that it forced me to sell the instrument (it was new, it held its tuning very well and sounded like a grand piano)....

I wonder: what right did he have to know how my piano was supposed to sound? Unfortunately, it is a common evil, working poorly but also not listening to the client...

Of course it is a generalization, but once upon a time the technician presented themselves more often with greater humility, listening to the musician and trying to understand their needs, whether they were right or wrong.

Today, instead, technicians tend to impose what is right and what is not, how one should play or how a piano should sound, as if they were the very reason for the entire matter.