Industrial Chemists, Please?

[dporritt]

Bill:

I've used fabric softener (Snuggle) several times.  The first time was on a
Steinway D that had been far-to-much-overly-doped.  The hammers were so hard
I couldn't get multiple needles go penetrate and if I forced just a single
needle in (with great effort) it just made a hole, it didn't soften the mat.

Since I figured the hammers were a lost cause anyhow, I used the fabric
softener/alcohol mix and dried the hammers with a hair dryer.  When I slid
the action back in the cavity, I had a totally different - and beautiful
piano.  It changed from the piano no one would play, to the one everyone
wanted to play.  I don't know the chemistry but it works very well.

dave

_______________________________________________

David M. Porritt, RPT
Meadows School of the Arts
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas
dporritt@swbell.net <mailto:dporritt@swbell.net>
_______________________________________________



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]On Behalf
Of Bill Ballard
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 1999 1:19 PM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Cc: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: Industrial Chemists, Please?


At 9:22 AM -0600 7/1/99, John  R  Fortiner wrote:
>Bill:  I got your response.  Please Do NOT be offended by this question:
>Do you know what a surfactant is?  If not, just say so and I'll attempt
>to answer in not-so-technical terms.

No sweat, John, we're all just boy scouts helping each other across various
busy streets.

Yep. A surfactant negates the water's surface tension, allowing said
waterto be absorbed by a textile. The real question is what is the active
ingredient which has a good (and highly respected) friend of mine saying
that this fabric softener is even better than steam at releasing hard
hammers. (Steam works grudgingly on reinforced hammers.)

The jug mentions only "cationics (softeners)", whereas if they are
surfactants only, they would be performing a vehicular function. A few
rounds ago in the discussion (I've been through the archives already),
David Stanwood opined that fabric softener's active ingredient was water
(at least as far as the work we'd like it to do on hammer felt). In which
case, we might as well employ a surfactant which is completely volitile,
say alcohol, as opposed the fabric softener which leaves its own waxy
solids. Wheresofurthermoreover (Jim Bryant,don't you just love the way
over-educated Yankees talk?),if the speed with which the surfactant
finishes its job is the issue, isopropyl alc is far faster than the farbric
softener. But if we're talking speed, steam leaves eveyone in the dust.

All of this assumes that the water cure is the only way to reclaim
over-reinforced hammers. I've also been toying with the idea of a thin jet
of acetone from an air brush, with just enough pressure so that 1.) the
acetone won't evaporate before doing its work (how 'bout spray-tip directly
to hammer crown) and 2.) the stream won't tear apart the fiber matt at the
crown. Whatshould happen is that the acetone should undo the gluing
together of fibers, and the spray stream should blow small amounts of air
space back in the matt.

I should call Lever's 800 # to see if they'll tell me what's in this stuff
besides surfactants (therehas to be),and what it might be expected to do on
wool fibers.

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"I gotta go ta woik...."
Ian Shoales, Duck's Breath M. Theater