[CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up)

[Ed Sutton]

Do we know that traditional use calls for flexible or simple collodion? Internet sources give recipes like these.

Flexible Collodion is: Camphor 20 g; Castor Oil 30 g; Collodion qs 1000 g

Collodion is: Pyroxylin 40 g; Ether 750 ml; Alcohol 250 ml

When we add juices to hammers, are we trying to bind or cement the wool fibers together, or are we trying to size and stiffen the individual fibers? I tend to think we are sizing and stiffening the fibers, using very thin solutions which partially penetrate and coat the fibers. Is this better done by something stiff or flexible, or does it matter? 

Ed S.





  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Sturm 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 10:43 AM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Hamburg Steinway Hammer Voicing (Up)


  On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:21 PM, Ed Foote wrote:


              It is my experience that sanding sealer is much softer than lacquer.  I remember a guitar refinisher that decided it would be easier to buff out a sealer finish than to shoot lacquer over it.  The finish was so soft that it got scratched by anything that touched it.  


  "Softer" yes, but more flexible? Certainly easier to scratch or buff, but I have assumed it is because the plastic-like molecules can't grow as long because of the dust (that Dale tells us is zinc stearate). Less "brittle" I think would be the same cause: it doesn't propagate long cracks like glass, because the material is less continuous. But I think it breaks more easily, in the context of coating hammer fibers. Hence, it is a less aggressive hardener. But I don't think this is because of a greater flexibility of material.
  I'm trying to get at the basic principles here, along the same lines as hard and flexible collodion. My guess is that flexible collodion would behave differently than sanding sealer, but it is a guess without any practical experience to back it up.

  Regards,
  Fred Sturm
  fssturm at unm.edu
  "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Twain

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