WD-40 As An Action Lubricant?

[Newton Hunt]

First, sillycone is NOT a lubricant.  It functions as a stress reliever, its
lubricity is very low.  As an example of a stress relief: if the keytop plastic
has lost some of its plastisizers and has shrunk, silicone will get into the
glue joint and cause it to fail, curling the plastic off the key by relieving
the stgress on the glue joint.  You can imagine what silicone will do to tuning
pins and pinblocks.

WD-40 is NOT a lobricant.  Its function is as a _W_ater _D_isplacer.  It thus
acts as a rust inhibitor with very low lubrucity.  Since it is a petroleum
distilate it has superb solvent abilities, including getting crayon off walls
and pen marks off hands, removing epoxy from work areas and hands and removing
pencil marks from damper heads.

If crud or moisture is the cause of sluggish pinning it will work.  It will
work on asian tight centers as well, except it leaves behind an oily deposit
that will attract dust, permenantly stain wooden parts and generally make a
mess.  The aroma will alos remain for a very long time.

I have used it and will continue to use it for many purposes but I think I will
use it only in an emergency for any pinning problems.  As an example, I have
the care of a Korean piano in a night club where the damper center pins had
frozen up.  I was short of time and did not have any proper lubes with me.  I
went to a nearby everything inexpensive store and found a can of WD-40, cheap,
and used it to loosen up the pins in the damper section.  It worked, continues
to work, (you may see the piano being used by Cyrus Chestnut on one of the
morning programs next month).

My advice, if you have protek, use it.  If you have a non silicone center
lubricant, use it.  If you have a silicone lubricant, DON'T use it.  If you
have WD-40, and who doesn't, use it sparingly and rarely.

      Newton
      nhunt@rci.rutgers.edu