Verdigris

[Horace Greeley]

Jim, Dorothy, et al,

At 12:37 PM 8/13/2004, you wrote:
>Dorothy, Thanks for the chemistry lesson.
>
>Fellows, I'm still opposed to putting any liquid into flange bushings
>that's not going to completely evaporate.  As I said before, I have not
>found any of the verdigris "quick-fix" remedies to work for very long if
>the problem is really caused by advanced verdigris.  And when I do use
>ethanol and distilled water as a shrinking solution for tight bushings NOT
>caused by verdigris, I just put a small drop on each bushing.  I don't soak
>the entire flange in it.

A lesson well worth remembering.  I am sure that we have all seen flanges 
pretty much ruined by being (in effect) soaked with a sizing solution...

Also:

>Dorothy, if you are reading this, do you think on those old S&S parts that
>were treated with paraffin and whale oil, that the organic whale oil might
>be more responsible for turning to acid and attacking the metal pins than
>the paraffin?  What do you think?

Hmmm...As noted elsewhere, I am no chemist either...and, my observations 
(other than from the field) are based on the lore that was still rampant, 
errr, existent at the factory in the early 70's....so...in addition to 
Jim's question in re: the whale oil, there is another component which has 
not been addressed which is the lanolin in the felt of the bushing.  It 
seems to me that there was a pretty overall unstable set of chemical 
conditions present in the flanges to begin with...then, with the "right" 
amounts of time, humidity, use, etc. things get nasty.  One thing I have 
found numerous times, is that, while the majority of the instruments of a 
certain vintage wind up with vertigris-related issues, a surprising number 
do not - remain, except for what might be thought of as normal wear and 
tear, pretty much as they probably left the factory...so, since they (in my 
experience) have seemed virtually identical to those which wind up with 
vertigris, what was/is the difference?

101-proof Wild Turkey - ah, yes! - Pure nectar!...for medicinal purposes 
only, of course!  For piano work, 101 is better than the 151-proof, which, 
I think, lends credence to Dorothy's comments.

A couple of other thoughts on Freddy, while we're at it:  With due respect 
to a few others, he was probably the last person at S&S could 
(metaphorically) have started at one end of the factory with raw wood and 
personally produced a finished, playable, musically useable 
product.  Anyone who had the chance to attend his classes came away with 
more than they bargained for...or, they simply were not paying 
attention.  Whether he was making his needles "sing" (which one could still 
do with factory hammers in those days), or taking great delight in the 
shocked faces as he beat sostenuto mechanisms into submission with an 8 oz. 
ball peen hammer, there was an artistry in his use of tools and his hands 
that was truly spectacular to watch.

If your memory is long enough, you may also remember that, in the days when 
the factory was busily telling everyone that, if there was a problem with 
their fancy new Teflon action, it was obviously something that they (the 
local technician) had screwed up, Freddy was the guy who was going around 
teaching people how to make their own crude-but-effective parallel reamers 
out of center pins rolled between files...Nope, it wouldn't fly at all in 
our latter-day, post-modern world of techno-nonsense piano work...but, it 
kept a large number of instruments functioning that would otherwise have 
died on delivery while the marketing folks figured out that they had made a 
mistake and tried to catch up.

Ah, well...I suspect it might be time to raise a glass in his general 
direction...

Best to all.

Horace