Removing key bushings - an observation

[Douglasmahard@AOL.COM]

Hi all,

Upon removing a set of key bushings yesterday I stumbled onto a technique 
that made the bushings let go much faster.  My usual technique is to soak the 
bushings with a H2O/Wallpaper remover mix and then us a caul in a soldering 
iron to steam them out.  This method in itself works pretty good and that's 
is what I was doing.  However, my caul was loading up with old felt fragments 
and I had to take time to scrape the caul clean every 4th key or so.  I 
thought if I stuck the caul in a jar of water perhaps the sticky old felt 
will come off by itself or scrape off easier.  Well, it scraped off easier 
but I also noticed that the bushings were coming out a lot faster too.  Every 
other key I was dipping the caul in cold water and the bushings released 
immediately upon insertion into the mortise.  I had a reostat hooked to the 
soldering iron set on a little more then half way.

It will be interesting to try this on the next bushing job to see if it 
happens again.

Doug Mahard