Evidence of overlacquered hammers

[Barbara Richmond]

So what does one do to help it, drench with acetone?  I must admit, I 
haven't tried that yet.

What the heck, even though it's polically incorrect and 9 or ten years ago I 
was told I was clogging up the hammers, here's what I've done with hammers 
with too much lacquer and when needling or whatever doesn't do the trick. 
I've had a lot of experience with this, because *every* Steinway at IWU 
(where I was on staff)--except a new D--had been over-lacquered and since I 
had no parts budget, I had to do something.

I use a glass syringe (I batted my eye-lashes at the pharmacist 22 1/2 years 
ago to get it without a prescription) and needle (of course).  Mix 8 parts 
alcohol and one part fabric softener (yeah, yeah, I've heard what some folks 
think of fabric softener, but it works).  Carefully, one drop at a time--and 
you may only need one drop--on the place that has the lacquer, or any other 
place that you want to soften up.   It works and it can sound great.   The 
nice thing about the syringe is it's easier to control where the stuff goes 
and with careful use, one can control the size of the drop.  If the sound 
gets brought down too much, do whatever you'd do to brighten it up again 
(filing, iron, etc.).

There you have it.

Barbara Richmond

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos@comcast.net>
To: "'Pianotech'" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 8:28 AM
Subject: RE: Evidence of overlacquered hammers


> It doesn't.  The issue here is not maintaining the strike point.  When
> the hammer flattens out it strikes the strings on each side of the
> flattened surface.  Since lacquer is usually applied from the shoulders,
> the outer edges of the shoulder can be a bit crusty and you can end up
> with two rather pingy strike points.
>
> David Love
> davidlovepianos@comcast.net
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
> Behalf Of Jerry Cohen
> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 6:16 AM
> To: 'Pianotech'
> Subject: RE: Evidence of overlacquered hammers
>
> Getting back to the original subject, why would over lacquering cause
> the
> hammer to strike the string at 2 different points? Did I misinterpret
> something?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jerry Cohen
> NJ Chapter
>
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