At 6:38 PM +0100 12/5/01, Richard Brekne wrote: >This one sound very curious indeed. I have seen plenty plates spray painted as >you say... I think it looks a bit silly to gold paint the brass... but I have >never found anything that would hint that this would wreck the sound of an >instrument. Tho since its you Joe... I will be on the lookout for the next one >of these I run into and see if I can confirm your claim. > >Anyone else have Joes experience ? Maybe a long time ago, and I think it's a valid point. If I'm using the original agraffes, I clean them in different ways according to their condition, sometimes removing them and sometimes not. I then gild, generally using a spirit based medium to adhere to the older finishes, and lacquer with an extremely expensive toluene based "blending clear" car lacquer. I usually remove the masking from the agraffes before the last coat of clear. But I always carefully clean the agraffe holes with a sharpened hammer shank at the end of the process. Wherever possible I use new agraffes and always on Steinways, because agraffes are cheap and there's a lot of labour in getting old agraffes looking really nice. Besides, the termination is most important and sensitive and funny things can happen to Steinways if the agraffes get worn. If I use new agraffes, I do not lacquer over them. JD
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