US3805662A - Piano hammer - Google Patents

Piano hammer Download PDF

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Publication number
US3805662A
US3805662A US00276170A US27617072A US3805662A US 3805662 A US3805662 A US 3805662A US 00276170 A US00276170 A US 00276170A US 27617072 A US27617072 A US 27617072A US 3805662 A US3805662 A US 3805662A
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US
United States
Prior art keywords
felt
hammer
piano
piano hammer
fibers
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Expired - Lifetime
Application number
US00276170A
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English (en)
Inventor
F Nishimura
K Yamada
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Nippon Gakki Co Ltd
Original Assignee
Nippon Gakki Co Ltd
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Nippon Gakki Co Ltd filed Critical Nippon Gakki Co Ltd
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of US3805662A publication Critical patent/US3805662A/en
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
    • G10C—PIANOS, HARPSICHORDS, SPINETS OR SIMILAR STRINGED MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS WITH ONE OR MORE KEYBOARDS
    • G10C3/00—Details or accessories
    • G10C3/16—Actions
    • G10C3/18—Hammers
    • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
    • Y10—TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC
    • Y10T—TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER US CLASSIFICATION
    • Y10T156/00—Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
    • Y10T156/10—Methods of surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
    • Y10T156/1052—Methods of surface bonding and/or assembly therefor with cutting, punching, tearing or severing

Definitions

  • ABSTRACT Piano hammer having a felt member which has been impregnated with vinyl monomer or a dilute solution thereof with solvent and then subjected to heat or radiation to polymerize and cure said monomer within said felt is disclosed.
  • the polymerized and cured vinyl monomer not only makes the hammer felt durable, strengthening the resistance to wear thereof without becoming any cause of noise generation itself, but also protects the felt member from being affected by moisture, since the fibers of the felt member are covered, or bonded together, by the polymerized vinyl monomer.
  • the present invention relates to a piano hammer which is long-lasting and non-susceptible to influences from environmental conditions, especially from moisture, and capable of making a sound having constant tone quality and volume.
  • the tone quality and volume of piano are delicately affected by conditions of string, hammer and sound board. Particularly, the influence from hammer is important. Therefore, the piano hammer should have an excellent structure having high resistance to wear but nevertheless generating no noises, which otherwise might be'when a string is struck by the hammer, and being non-susceptible to influences from environmental conditions. The non-susceptibility to such influences is an indispensable requirement, for avoiding changes of tone quality and volume.
  • the piano hammer is composed of a hammer head of wood and a striking member of felt (usually high quality woolen felt) securely attached to the hammer head.
  • a solution of thermoplastic polymer for example, nitrocellulose lacquer, urethane resin and the like
  • solvent is applied to the felt member after the felt is attached to the hammer head wooden plate member and before the plate member is cut to each piano hammer.
  • the felt member of the prior-art hammer is greatly influenced by the influences from environmental conditions, especially from moisture, and the hardness of the felt striking member, previously adjusted to a predetermined value, becomes changed first at the outer surface thereof and then gradually toward the inner portion thereof, with the result that the tone quality and volume of the piano are adversely influenced.
  • the most detrimental drawback is that when conventional resinous solution is applied, it is difficult to make the solution penetrate into the inside of the felt due to high molecular weight of resin (high viscosity of the resinous solution) resulting in an unbalance of hardness in the felt is detrimental to the tone quality of piano, That is, the resin applied to the felt is mostly concentrated on the outer surface of the felt, and the hardness at the outer surface becomes too hard, although the overall hardness or durability of the striking member of felt is insufficient. Such concentration of the resin on the outer surface becomes a cause of generating undesirable noises when the hammer strikes the string.
  • An object of the present invention is to provide a piano hammer which does not have above drawbacks and a method of producing the same.
  • a piano hammer having a felt member which has been impregnated with vinyl monomer or a dilute solution thereof with solvent and then subjected to heat or radiation to polymerize and cure said monomer with said felt.
  • the felt is impregnated with vinyl monomer or a dilute solution thereof with solvent and then subjected to heat or radiation to polymerize and cure the monomer inside of the felt.
  • FIG. 1 shows a structure of a hammer head plate member and a long felt strip attached to the plate member, the structure being afterwards cut into pieces of piano hammers;
  • FIG. 2 is a side elevational view showing a piece of finished piano hammer.
  • a long felt strip 1 of wool is first bonded to a hammer head plate member 2 of wood, so that a plurality of piano hammers can be obtained therefrom.
  • the bonded structure of the felt strip 1 and plate member 2 is thereafter cut into plural pieces of piano hammers along the dotted lines 3 shown in FIG. 1.
  • Each piano hammer 4 as shown in FIG. 2, comprises a hammer head 5 of wood and a striking member 6 of felt such as woolen felt securely connected to the hammer head.
  • the piano hammer 4 is mounted on the end of a shank 7.
  • the long felt strip 1 or the striking member 6 of felt is dipped or soaked into a vinyl monomer solution, so that the vinyl monomer can bepolymerized therein.
  • vinyl monomer compounds which are liquid at room temperature and- /or soluble in usual solvent may be used in the present invention.
  • Preferred examples are esters of ethylenic unsaturated lower fatty acid such as methacrylic acid ester and methylmethacrylate, and vinylic aromatic hydrocarbon such as styrene and vinyltoluene.
  • the impregnation with vinyl monomer, and the polymerization and cure of said monomer may be effected by any of the methods well known in the art.
  • the polymerization may be either thermal polymerization, photopolymerization, or radiation-induced polymerization.
  • the hammer felt strip 1 which was attached to the hammer head plate member 2 but not cut to each piano hammer piece as above, was dipped or soaked in the vinyl monomer solution for l to minutes and immediately thereafter subjected to a treatment for preventing the evaporation of the monomer (e.g. enveloping the felt strip in an aluminum foil) and then heated in a hot air dryer at a temperature of 90i5C for 5 hours to polymerize the monomer contained in the hammer felt strip.
  • a treatment for preventing the evaporation of the monomer e.g. enveloping the felt strip in an aluminum foil
  • the bonded structure of the hammer felt strip 1 and the hammer head plate member 2 may be beforehand cut into a plurality of piano hammer pieces and then such piano hammer pieces may be dipped or soaked in the vinyl monomer solution.
  • the first mentioned procedure is more efficient in the mass production of the piano hammers.
  • the piano hammer thus obtained was found to contain the polymer uniformly distributed inside of the felt. It was further found that the uniformly distributed polymer greatly elevated the over-all durability of the striking member 6, and that the polymer, which did not concentrate on the outer surface of the striking member as in the prior-art one, did not become a cause of noise generation when the piano hammer struck the string. It was still further found that the striking member containing the polymer was superior in the prevention of the striking member from being affected by moisture. This was because the fibers of the felt were covered or bonded together at the contact points thereof by the polymerized vinyl monomer, that is, the resultant polymer. Repeated quality tests-with the articles produced by the above production method did not show any fluctuation of quality.
  • An improved piano hammer comprising a hammer head and a striking member fastened to said hammer head, said striking member composed of felt fibers bonded together at their points of contact with a vinyl polymer, said vinyl polymer being uniformly distributed throughout said felt fibers, said striking member being substantially moisture resistant.
  • a piano hammer according to claim 1' in which said vinyl polymer is selected fromv esters of ethylenic unsaturated lower fatty acid and vinylic aromatic hydrocarbon.
  • a piano hammer according to claim 2 in which one of said esters of ethylenic unsaturated lower fatty acid is methacrylic acid ester and said vinylic aromatic hydrocarbon is styrene.
  • a piano hammer comprising a hammer head and a felt striking member securely attached to the hammer, the improvement wherein said striking member is composed of felt fibers as the sole fibers present, said felt fibers secured and bonded to each other by a vinyl polymer distributed uniformly throughout said felt fibers.

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  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Chemical And Physical Treatments For Wood And The Like (AREA)
  • Stringed Musical Instruments (AREA)
  • Polymerisation Methods In General (AREA)
US00276170A 1971-08-04 1972-07-28 Piano hammer Expired - Lifetime US3805662A (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
JP46058249A JPS4825514A (en, 2012) 1971-08-04 1971-08-04

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
US3805662A true US3805662A (en) 1974-04-23

Family

ID=13078836

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US00276170A Expired - Lifetime US3805662A (en) 1971-08-04 1972-07-28 Piano hammer

Country Status (4)

Country Link
US (1) US3805662A (en, 2012)
JP (1) JPS4825514A (en, 2012)
DE (1) DE2238298A1 (en, 2012)
GB (1) GB1366586A (en, 2012)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5125310A (en) * 1989-05-18 1992-06-30 Steinway Musical Properties, Inc. Piano forte hammer and method of making same
US5811702A (en) * 1995-09-25 1998-09-22 Yamaha Corporation Keyboard musical instrument having hammer heads formed of metallic powder containing synthetic resin and process of fabricating hammer assembly
US20090223343A1 (en) * 2008-03-06 2009-09-10 Asami Inouye Piano hammer
US20100132533A1 (en) * 2007-08-08 2010-06-03 Obbligato, Inc. Pyrolytic carbon components for stringed instruments

Families Citing this family (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPS5112711B2 (en, 2012) * 1973-09-04 1976-04-21
JPS5867393U (ja) * 1981-10-29 1983-05-07 ヤマハ株式会社 ピアノ用ハンマ
JPS58149787U (ja) * 1982-03-31 1983-10-07 ヤマハ株式会社 ピアノ用ハンマ−
US6054641A (en) * 1995-10-27 2000-04-25 Yamaha Corporation Keyboard musical instrument for practicing fingering on keyboard without acoustic sounds

Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US1374974A (en) * 1920-08-02 1921-04-19 Otto J Diehl Method of making piano-hammers
US2357392A (en) * 1941-03-01 1944-09-05 Sylvania Ind Corp Process for producing fibrous products
US2817574A (en) * 1955-08-09 1957-12-24 American Felt Co Impregnated wool felt and method of making same
US3296023A (en) * 1964-03-11 1967-01-03 Rockland Bleach And Dye Works Fabric coated with light reflecting filler and acrylic polymer
US3487429A (en) * 1968-05-27 1969-12-30 Gaf Corp Piano hammer felt
US3616031A (en) * 1968-02-14 1971-10-26 Vepa Ag Process for bonding felts and needled felts

Patent Citations (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US1374974A (en) * 1920-08-02 1921-04-19 Otto J Diehl Method of making piano-hammers
US2357392A (en) * 1941-03-01 1944-09-05 Sylvania Ind Corp Process for producing fibrous products
US2817574A (en) * 1955-08-09 1957-12-24 American Felt Co Impregnated wool felt and method of making same
US3296023A (en) * 1964-03-11 1967-01-03 Rockland Bleach And Dye Works Fabric coated with light reflecting filler and acrylic polymer
US3616031A (en) * 1968-02-14 1971-10-26 Vepa Ag Process for bonding felts and needled felts
US3487429A (en) * 1968-05-27 1969-12-30 Gaf Corp Piano hammer felt

Cited By (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5125310A (en) * 1989-05-18 1992-06-30 Steinway Musical Properties, Inc. Piano forte hammer and method of making same
US5811702A (en) * 1995-09-25 1998-09-22 Yamaha Corporation Keyboard musical instrument having hammer heads formed of metallic powder containing synthetic resin and process of fabricating hammer assembly
US20100132533A1 (en) * 2007-08-08 2010-06-03 Obbligato, Inc. Pyrolytic carbon components for stringed instruments
US8110729B2 (en) 2007-08-08 2012-02-07 Obbligato, Inc. Pyrolytic carbon components for stringed instruments
US20090223343A1 (en) * 2008-03-06 2009-09-10 Asami Inouye Piano hammer
US7632996B2 (en) * 2008-03-06 2009-12-15 Asami Inouye Piano hammer

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB1366586A (en) 1974-09-11
JPS4825514A (en, 2012) 1973-04-03
DE2238298A1 (de) 1973-02-15

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