Shellac vs. lacquer

[Richard Brekne]

> At 6:54 AM +0200 7/15/02, Richard Brekne wrote:
> >Works great, lasts a long
> >time, breaks down with time probably more then most lacquers
> >will.
> 
> You made the comment about the resins "breaking down" earlier, and
> now I must pursue it. Are you saying that the resins which have
> coated the fibers (sheathing them, actually) eventually crumble under
> the constant flexing/squashing of the fibers, leaving the resins
> segmented sheathings with their original mass and stiffness, but
> their elasticity decimated by segmentation? Inquiring minds have just
> awakened and are hungry.
> 

Holy Christmas Bill... you used at least eight 67 cent words
there... :) gets complicated for this Norwegianized mind of
mine.

Lets see.. Shellac... the same stuff that spirit lacquer is,
that stuff of which french polish is achieved... is kind of
brittle stuff when hard. Just take a few of those flakes in
your hand and crumble them.

If you want an idea of how Shellack is going to behave over
time inside the hammer take a thick dense strip of felt (for
example damper lift felt for the back end of grand keys) and
soak a short strip of it in Shellack and let dry. The have
fun playing around with it in as many creative ways as you
can think of and check out how it reacts.

As for whether this whole process leaves the elasticity
decimated or not I dont know.... try stretching the strip
above and see how snappy it is ! Tho I have to wonder if
your segmentation would like reaaaly be synomonous with
chopping the felt fibers into a million short peices with
one of those Japanese knife thingys. :)

RicB


> Bill Ballard RPT
> NH Chapter, P.T.G.
> 
> "Filing the bridgepins sure puts a sparkle on the restringing, but is
> best done before the plate is re-installed"
>      ...........recent shop journal entry
> +++++++++++++++++++++