Evidence of overlacquered hammers

David Ilvedson ilvey@sbcglobal.net
Wed, 29 Sep 2004 08:18:28 -0700


And what does one do with the acetone used in the drenching?   Hopefully no one is dumping down the drain...;-[

David I.



----- Original message ---------------------------------------->
From: Barbara Richmond <piano57@flash.net>
To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
Received: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 08:41:12 -0500
Subject: Re: Evidence of overlacquered hammers

>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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