On 11/1/2010 3:49 AM, Ryan Sowers wrote: > > One that concerns me is the monomer liquid used in the acrylikey ivory > chip repair system. That stuff is so incredibly volatile - you can > smell it instantly when you open the container. It smells particularly > nasty too! I caught one whiff of that smell during the demonstration, and wanted nothing to do with it. I think that the Acrylikey should be used only under a hood in a chem lab. Notice that the very nice tuner who invented it (senior moment -- his name is temporarily out of my reach) died young. He was also hemophiliac, so how much the fumes had to do with it is unknown. I'm sure they didn't do his liver any good. > > Another is the accelerators used for super glue - another really > volatile chemical that worries! But it comes in so handy! Also I > wonder how terrible the super glue fumes are themselves. When treating > a pinblock you can really get a lot of fumes going. The super glue accelerators are completely unnecessary, thank heavens. That is one reason I like the glue trick so well ... white glue or carpenter's glue set up the CA quite nicely, and quickly enough, with no fumes of their own at all. The accelerator was another thing I smelled once and vowed never to smell again. As for the CA fumes -- yes, lots and lots of ventilation, especially in a customer's house! But I think that the better answer is, USE LESS OF IT. Instead of trying to saturate a whole pinblock, just use a few drops on whatever pins don't hold. It's not like you couldn't treat others later as needed. If you treat only the bad pins, and only with a few drops (which is usually enough, though sometimes a second application of a few more drops later helps), you can deal with the loose pins in just a few minutes, as needed, without gassing yourself and your customer. We as a group seem to be trying to retain the old method of dealing with bad pinblocks (soak the whole block with glycerin and alcohol) and just change the substance used. But CA is fundamentally different. It seems to me to be much more suited to spot applications now and then as needed. Instead of having to make a big deal of treating the block like in the bad old days -- tipping the upright, pouring this GOOP on, waiting a week, mopping up what we can, un-tipping, tuning ... well, of course we only want to do that once, and only if we really need to. But CA can free us from that whole scenario. When you have a particular pin which won't hold, treat it. The medium loose ones, just leave them till they won't hold at a later date, then treat them as needed. Out comes the tiny bottle with the narrow spout, and a towel. A few drops, it wicks in without tilting the piano, let it sit a few minutes, tune to get the pin moving before it sets completely. Try again in a few more minutes, add a little more if needed ......... and all done, just during a normal tuning. No tilting, no messy kid stuff, just tighter pins. And since you'll be exposed to less of the CA fumes than if you'd tried for (completely unnecessary) total saturation, you are less likely to have to expose yourself to our toxic health care system later on. Well, just my take on it. Susan Kline
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