pianotech-digest V2002 #716

[D.L. Bullock]

"Technique for removing damper felt" by D.L. Bullock    Piano World    St.
Louis
I originally removed damper felts from uprights and grands by using exacto
knife and spent hours scraping and gluing back wood that was not supposed to
come off but did because of the grain on some damper blocks.   Another
technique was, I pulled most of the felt off by hand and used a moto-tool
and sanding drum to remove the rest.  Whatever you do, you must remove all
the old hot glue or the new will not stick for long, especially if you use
something other than hot glue for the new dampers.  Both of these methods
work but are slow.  Anything we can do to save time is money in our pockets.
While I will NEVER cut quality to save money, I have found a faster way with
less work and I can be doing other things while water does the work.

In an upright:

Pull as much felt off as possible by hand.  Find a few rags that you can
fold into strips about 2 inches wide.  There should be enough rag length to
go from end to end of the dampers from damper 1 to 66 or whatever it is.
Wet these folded rags with hot water.  Squeeze them out mostly so that they
don't drip very much. Put them end to end on a formica or other waterproof
table.

Now lay the piano action down so that the damper blocks are all on the rags.
Press them into the rags.  Let the dampers soak against the hot wet rags for
15 minutes and check them.  If the rags are wet enough, they will have
soaked all the way through to the wood blocks without getting any other
parts of the action wet.  You should be able to slide the felts around on
the slimy wood at this point.  If they are not yet there, then rewet the
rags in hot water and soak some more.

To speed up this second soak, slide as many of the felts off of the wood as
possible with your fingers and toss them.  Now you will soak some more and
the rest of them will come off after this.  They take various times to soak
off depending upon the piano.  Once all the felt is off, you will notice
that the wood blocks are still slimy.  Now take a wet rag and rub the wood
to remove all the slimy part.  That slime is old hot glue and will wash off
with a wet rag.  If it is stubborn use a toothbrush or other small scrub
brush to remove stubborn glue spots.  The glue will look shiny and will feel
slimy to your fingers.  When the slimy is gone the glue is gone.

Set the whole action up in front of a fan or in the sun to dry.

In Grands:

Once again, remove as much of the felt as you can by hand and put damper
heads in your storage rack. I use a wooden rack with a row of 70 or so holes
to store grand dampers for restoration.  You will need twice as much rag as
in uprights since you need one on each side of the dampers.  I just lay my
strips of hot wet rags on either side of the holes in the rack so that the
ends of the damper blocks with the felt on them will be soaking against the
hot rags.  After they soak, just rub the blocks with your fingers and
another clean wet rag or running water to remove the slimy glue and all the
felt.    When they are all done, put a small dowel rod under the row of
dampers to keep them up off the flat wood rack and put them in front of a
fan or in the sun.  You want to dry things quickly and so the air must
circulate all around the wet wood.  If you are not going to strip the damper
heads for refinishing, then keep the painted surface dry.

I have never had warpage or damage from these procedures.

Good luck with your dampers

D.L. Bullock
www.thepianoworld.com
St. Louis