---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Bob, At 12:08 PM 12/10/99 -0500, you wrote: >Greetings, Horace, To yourself, as well! >Three things. First, I assume they used alcohol as a solvent, but did they >ever also use anything hotter, like acetone, as a diluent? I do not know that they did or did not. My experiments with acetone were less than successful in that the solutions became unpredictably "clumpy"; rather like whey with really, really small curds. I am not sure why that happened, but have simply assumed (yes, I know) that it had to do with some chemical incompatability in what I was using. Maybe one of the chemists out there can explain what I did wrong. >Second, I don't see why bleached shellac wouldn't do in this application. It probably would. Reality is a matter of perception. We went through the same kind of political thing between shellac and lacquer as has happened between lacquer and "keytop" (which, by the way, is not what is used at S&S). The difference is that, as to shellac and lacquer, the tone produced was (with practice) virtually identical. Most of the acetone/keytop jobs I have followed have been pretty darned poor, tonally. >Third, it seems to me that shellac belongs in the category with some sanding >sealers and really cheap lacquers in that it has low cohesive strength, and >is easier to break up when voicing. The "better" lacquers are more toward the >keytop/acetone end of the very high cohesive strength continuum. I think >there's a difference in tone, and I suppose one could argue that it comes >both from the way the two types bind the felt together as well as the way >they react to needles. I think that the difference in the media is the difference in their designed purpose. That is, sanding sealer (I do not know about cheap lacquers) fills (sorry) a different purpose than lacquer itself. While I would agree that the better lacquers have a higher cohesive strength, they still, to my ear, produce a very different sound, and react very differently over time than does acetone/keytop. Also, while I tend to agree with your last sentence (certainly as to there being a difference in tone), I am not sure that I do not want to express it somewhat differently. Right now, the best I can come up with is that, with lacquer, you can fairly easily move it around, even after some years have passed. With keytop, once even the lightest solution is applied and allowed to dry, it takes great effort to make substantive changes. This has to do with how long it takes to emulsify the keytop. I am not sure how much sense this latter makes...sorry. I'll see if I cannot come up with a better explanation. Best. Horace >Bob Davis +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Horace Greeley, email: hgreeley@stanford.edu CNA, MCP, RPT Systems Analyst/Engineer voice: 650.725.9062 Controller's Office fax: 650.725.8014 Stanford University 651 Serra St., RM 100, MC 6215 Stanford, CA 94305-6215 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/08/f7/0f/13/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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