Resin-clad Fibers (was: Industrial Chemists)

[Bill Ballard]

At 2:28 PM -0600 7/1/99, John  R  Fortiner wrote:
>Case in point - people in agricultural business use surfactants to allow
>sprays to be more easily absorbed by plant leaves - whether feeding them
>( the plants ) or trying to get rid of them  by use of herbicides.

Thanks for the big picture.

>> But if we're talking speed, steam leaves eveyone in the dust.
>AND leaves NO residue - at least NEW residue.

What would steam residues be, the water's mineral content?

>> All of this assumes that the water cure is the only way to reclaim
>>over-reinforced hammers.
>And, if I understand even slightly correctly, the water works by
>"resizing" the felt - hopefully "fluffing" it a bit.

You got it. Water expands the matted mass. Water+ heat (=steam) does it
even better..

>Does acetone have any "sizing" effects on wool felt?????  I would doubt
>it - BUT I do know that it would certainly move waxes, oils, and other
>not-so-desirable things that are also found in wool.

I'm unaware of any direct effect of acetone on the felt matt or the wool
fibers. The acetone is brought into to disolve reinforcing resins.Thank you
for the point that they would also displace lanolin and other of the felt's
"prescious bodily fluids"

>>What should happen is that the acetone should undo the gluing together of
>>fibers,
>Gluing together??  with what - the reiforcing additive, or what was
>holding the felt together before it was reinforced?  I am under the
>understanding that the felt is not held together via a "glue", but via
>the "entanglement" of its own fibers.

You're correct about the felt mass and a matt of interlocked fibers. But
when resins are seeped into hammer felt, they do any of three things. At
first, they clad the fibers stiffening their resistence to elastic
deformation..With more resins, fibers which touch or are very close to
touching get glued together by solid resin further stiffening the mass. In
extreme cases, so much resin can be poured in that the air spaces between
fibers is completely filled in, by which time elasticity no longer exists.

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"No one builds the *perfect* piano, you can only remove the obstacles to
that perfection during the building."    ...........LaRoy Edwards