[pianotech] Using multifunction tool for grand damper felt removal?

[David Porritt]

Ron:

I'm with you on that soaking off dampers thing.  I had to refinish a set of
damper heads after I tried that my only time.

I just did a damper job last month and steamed them off with my Walmart
water heating pot and it worked quite well and pretty fast.  Also no danger
of removing wood of the damper head from getting overly aggressive with the
chisel.  I was pretty surprised how well the steam pot worked.

dave

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2011 2:05 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Using multifunction tool for grand damper felt
removal?

On 9/3/2011 9:08 PM, David Boyce wrote:
> Has anyone tried using one of the multifunction tools to remove grand
> damper felts which are REALLY stuck down?

Not a good choice. The tool isn't for finish work, but it's excellent in 
come applications for quick close trimming prior to finishing with 
something else.

I've tried soaking them off, as most folks have suggested, but my usual 
is one at a time in a bench vise (as opposed to a vice) with a well (as 
opposed to poorly) sharpened scraper and possibly a sharp chisel in 
really extreme cases. Nothing has to dry, and I can immediately start 
installing new dampers if I want. It just took one set of the water 
curling up the damper head finish to establish the method for me, but 
anyone can do it any way they like with my blessing.

Ron N