Juicy Details

[antares]

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment


Z! Reinhardt wrote:

> Hi List!
>
> Once again -- I'm looking for insights and details concerning juices.  This
> time I'd like to hear opinions on juices for hardening hammers.  Some of
> the concoctions I've heard about in recent discussions include:
>
> lacquer and lacquer thinner
> lacquer and acetone
> sanding sealer and ...
> collodion and ... ether?
> acrylic (keytops or pellets) and acetone
> vinyl and acetone
>

André Oorebeek writes:

Hello Mr. Z! Reinhardt,
>From my experience as a subscriber to this list (and mainly in the past), I
seem to remember that especially Americans probably have the most experience
in doping hammers, due to the fact that American hammers are soft from the
beginning.
My own experience with hammer dopes is limited, because I live in Europe, and,
as you probably know, European hammermakers produce hardened hammerheads.
Sometimes, however, a "refelting" might turn out to be a little too soft in
some sections. In that case a hammerfelt reinforcer is of course needed.
In the Steinway Factory in Hamburg they check each grand after final voicing
for "soft spots", and then use lacquer and lacquer thinner (Zarpon laquer) as
a hardener. It works very well and smells heavenly too!
I personally have mainly used collodium (existing of collodium, ether and
alcohol), which also is a Steinway recepy.
Collodium is amongst others being used in nail polish as a hardener, and it
smells pretty awful, like a hospital, because of the ether.
On the other hand, it too works very well as a hammer hardener, and, it works
VERY fast,  and I like the end result very much.
>From what I understood from your American colleagues, icollodium seems hard to
obtain in your Country.
Here too, it is very hard to get, and it has cost me a considerable amount of
time, persistence and energy to make the people in the pharmacy nearby
understand that I am not a junky, but instead an "honest" (!) pianotech.
So..in th end  I got it, and they now call me "het collodium mannetje",
meaning something like "the funny collodium guy"......... haha.

Nowadays, I must point out to you, there is also available in Germany, a felt
by the name of "Wurzen Filz".
It originally came from a very old factory in the East of Germany, and was
used by many very well known pianomakers in "them olden days". After the
opening up of East Germany, the Renner Factory  (and now maybe others?) was
able to re-produce that very same felt, and it is now being used by various
piano factories.
The quality is outstanding, the wool fibers are very fine, and the tone is
richer than most  hammers I know of.
It is hardly necessary to do a voicing at all, and sometimes, the hight treble
may need "some" hammerdope.
This development in "felt land" is remarkable, because it puts us Europeans
right in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, because we were, and are, totally
conditioned on voicing hammers down with needles, whereas you Americans most
often (as far as my limited brain capacity allows me) do it the other way
around, "juicing up" hammers because they are soft from the start.

Interesting neh?

André Oorebeek





---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/a7/63/5e/4a/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--