John Ammon

Biography

John Ammon, a piano maker of New York, obtained a patent in 1893 for a process of gluing a strip of tapered hammer felt together and inserting it into a wooden hammer head fitted with two prongs at the top. Ammon's aim was to economize on felt, and his method did require considerably less material than gluing felt around a conventional molding. However, Dolge judged the resulting hammer 'utterly impracticable,' chiefly because it was impossible to make the treble hammers firm enough for satisfactory tone. Despite this, Alfred Dolge saw in Ammon's invention the embryo of a hammer that might help solve the problem of hammers flattening out with use, and used it as the starting point for developing the improved 'Ammon-Dolge' hammer, which used a split, clasp-like molding secured by a metal agraffe.

Highlights

• A New York piano maker who patented, in 1893, a process of gluing a strip of tapered hammer felt and inserting it into a two-pronged wooden hammer head
• Intended to economize on felt, but his design proved impractical because treble hammers could not be made sufficiently firm
• His invention nonetheless inspired Alfred Dolge's improved 'Ammon-Dolge' hammer with a clasp and metal agraffe

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), pp. 104, 105.

Public domain.