On Jan 7, 2011, at 5:59 PM, Horace Greeley wrote: > The buckets into which parts (flanges only, unless the piano was > being "tropicalized") were dipped were filled with melted paraffin > wax, which was not mixed with tallow. If this is the case, no other "contaminants" besides a bit of whale oil, that makes the verdigris question quite puzzling. One thing that "paraffins" have in common is non-reactivity. They don't really combine well with other chemicals, though they burn readily. Seemingly they are nearly inert chemically, so it seems unlikely they would become gummy with age. Hmmm... Unless the "paraffin wax" was not well refined, and had impurities that led to the long term problems. Or somehow humidity and atmospheric contaminants somehow interacted in the environment created by paraffin impregnated wool. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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