[CAUT] Lanolin

[Fred Sturm]

	Going back to the subject of my initial post on lanolin, my purpose  
in trying it was to make hammers easier to voice. I also have noticed  
that it has a mellowing effect on the voicing by itself, but I am more  
impressed by its effect on "voiceability."
	Today I dosed a Pearl River 125 upright (49-50" Yamaha clone). It did  
take some of the nasty edge off the hammers, and perhaps a few days  
would have made the difference more. But for me, the main thing was  
that I was able to put the action on the bench and deep needle, 10-11  
mm, with a reasonable amount of effort and with very positive results.  
The hammers weren't "rocks," but I sure wasn't looking forward to  
trying to penetrate them, and preliminary trial insertions of needles  
were painful (very hard to get all the way in, hard to pull back out).  
Following the lanolin, they felt nice for densely pressed felt. I  
needed to use two instead of three needles, but it was a moderate  
workout for the forearm muscles, not a struggle.
Regards,
Fred
On Sep 20, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Fred Sturm wrote:

> Lanolin takes a good bit of stirring to mix it with the lacquer  
> thinner, when it is at room temp. It is a wax which is semi-solid  
> (pasty) at room temp, but has a very low melting point. If you melt  
> it first, it stirs into the thinner instantly. A hot water bath:  
> water heated in a mug (microwave), a couple heaping teaspoons of  
> lanolin in a film canister or similar sized container, hold the  
> container in the hot water and stir until liquid (a minute, maybe).  
> Pour into the lacquer thinner, stirring.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> fssturm at unm.edu