Key Bushing Glue

[John Delacour]

At 10:23 PM +0100 11/13/01, Isaac OLEG SIMANOT wrote:

>In France, Steam is the method officially learned to have bushings and in
>fact almost all cloths/felts off. You use a moist rag and a  hot iron, it is
>way faster than the wallpaper method (checked the 2), and it will close a
>little the hole, live no marks.
>Just be careful not to steam too much, live the iron on the next keys while
>you take the bushing off, go fast and everything will be fine.
>Have a complete set off in less than 15 min generally (but when white glue
>was used, then it is twice minimum).

I have never used steam to remove anything.  I add a bit of detergent 
to a pan of hot water and drip this into the bushings with a 
pen-filler or eye-dropper and then LEAVE them till the bushings are 
ready to fall out.  I never pay Time for the work it does and it does 
a lot.  For dampers, I dip them in a tall pan or glass full to the 
brim with the hot water and again let time do its work.  In very rare 
cases, where a particularly resistant grade of glue has been used, if 
the felts will not come off easily after three hours or so, then I 
will use an iron to heat up the water in the already soaked felts.

Apart from the time-saving from this method, any glue remaining on 
the wood is in the form of a very soft non-sticky gel and can be 
easily scraped off to leave a very clean surface.  There is also less 
risk of problems with dyes running into the wood.  The process is 
altogether simpler, faster and more pleasant.  The same principle 
applies when making new glue -- if you use cold water and time to 
soften the glue, you arrive more quickly at a gel, contrary to the 
expectations of the novice.

I also use water to reduce pin holes in butts and grand flanges when 
I have rebushed hammers, flanges etc., so as to be able to use the 
smallest possible pin size.  In this case I add no detergent to the 
water and draw it into the hole with a needle and cotton, where it 
remains by surface tension and shrinks the hole.  One treatment is 
usually enough and here steam can be useful on odd outside jobs where 
time-saving is important.

JD