Hammer Reshape Technique

This is how to reshape upright hammers , in the piano. No need to take the action out. This only takes about 15 minutes to do, and makes a tremendous improvement in the tone. As you see, a cupped hand, and the judicious use of the thumb, is important to master. And then, after the reshaping is finished with finer and finer sandpaper, a good thing to do to finish, is use the special tool hammer-head iron, heated up , to smooth out the heads. No tuning of a piano is complete, without the hammers being well shaped. And of course, before sanding them, it is well to re-allign the hammers to the strings. The imprint of the strings digging into the hammer head surface, is a good indication of which way to allign, right and left . And of course, before alligning the hammers, make sure that the little hammer butt plates that hold the center-pins in place, are well secured ( that requires taking out the action, placing it on a table on a soft blanket on the hammer rest-rail side, and going in between the damper levers with a thin screw-driver to tighten the little screws that hold the butt-plates.
In this video, is the piano playing of Paolo Giacometti, on an 1849 Erard grand ( piano restored using PureSound Wire , which gives it that beautiful, clear tone ) . Music by Rossini.