removal of lacquer/keytop

[Fred Sturm]

A few months ago, Horace Greeley, and then Roger Jolly, mentioned
removing keytop solution from a set of hammers by saturating with
acetone and letting it run down the tails (more or less). While reading
their description, I thought to myself (not for the first time)
"Wouldn't it be great if you could put the hammers in solvent and soak
the stuff out?" But this time, I thought a little further, and decided
that was possible. 
	We often take a stack and set it on its tail (jack tails and
hammershank flanges down) on a workbench, and pull the hammers forward
so they are resting on the bench surface. So, I thought, why couldn't
they be resting in a trough of acetone or thinner? Just a matter of
finding or making an appropriate sized/shaped trough.
	I looked around the shop, and the first promising thing my eye lit on
was an empty one gallon thinner can. I took tin snips, and cut down a
side about four inches from a corner, then diagonally across the bottom,
up the adjacent side, and diagonally across the top. Ending up with a
triangular trough. To make it stand up, I cut each of the sides back an
inch or so, and bent it down, so the trough ended up looking like a
letter "M" in cross section. Made a couple of these. (Other, more
elegant designs are obviously possible, but I tend to be a "down and
dirty" type - if it works and doesn't cost anything, that's fine with
me).
	I had a perfect candidate to try my notion on: a "D" with rocks of
indeterminate content (don't know what the other tech used, but the
entire set was saturated hard as any set of hammers I've run across). I
had tried to make the piano "more bearable" to play this fall by
steaming and cross-stitching, with an agreement to do major work this
spring when I had time and the hall was free. The steaming had minimal
effect, and the cross-stitching just made it almost bearable to play.
	So a couple weeks ago I pulled the stack, put it on end, and pulled
hammers forward into my troughs (it takes six troughs this size to hold
the whole set). I filled up each trough with lacquer thinner mixed with
acetone. It started turning milky right away. I let them soak for
fifteen minutes, swishing gently every few minutes. THen pulled the
hammers out of the bath, pressed a couple layers of paper towel against
them (crowns and shoulders of the whole lot) to pull as much solvent as
possible, and then took a dry paper towel and quickly pressed it against
each hammer individually (sides as well). 
	I repeated this procedure with the rest of the set, then did it again.
First time I used half and half acetone to lacquer thinner (lacquer
thinner to retard drying), second time two or three to one acetone to
lacquer. 
	Results: quite gratifying. Sounds like a piano again. I have to wait a
couple weeks before I can get adequate time in the hall again, but have
very high hopes for the final results.
	Hope others will find this helpful.

Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico