On Dec 8, 2008, at 3:26 PM, Paul T Williams wrote: > I've used the hammer softener as well, but BEWARE! It's easy to > make them pretty well worthless. I used it on a practice room and > one DMA student left me a note that they sounded like "Nerf" > hammers! Way dead. However, filing a bit and needling brought them > back to "near dead" for another year, but I think I now have to > replace them. Hint...use the hammer softening touch very > carefully! Might work, though, if your really conservative with > it. I think you can get more controllable results with alcohol and water, because you can control (and know) how much water is in the mix (water being the active agent, alcohol just the vehicle for getting it in the felt evenly). 91% isopropyl is 10:1 alcohol: water. 70% is a little over 2:1. A mixture will be in between. Experiment. You'll find 91% can be used quite liberally with subtle effect. 70% needs more caution. Somewhere between is somewhere between. But the point is that you are controlling how much water is entering the felt through its dilution, not just through how you apply it (where, how deep penetration is, how much you saturate). I've been experimenting recently with adding fabric softener to alcohol and water with promising results. I should say I don't know what is in the hammer softener formula, but in any case, it is a single strength if used straight. I assume you could mix with alcohol - maybe 100% denatured - to reduce effect, and make it less extreme. I haven't had success using a softening agent on lacquered hammers. > why not just needle the heck out of them? Just a time thing? A lot of seriously over-lacquered hammers, you are lucky if you can get a needle in. And then you have just made a permanent hole, with no positive effect of adding springiness to the hammer felt or reduced density. The solids from the over application of hardener has filled all or most of the space between the fibers. It happens mostly when you have an instrument that is being "taken care of" by far too many people, none of whom knows what anyone else is doing (and some of whom are obviously lacking in experience, skill, and sense). Until you wash some or most of the solids out, you have an unworkable conglomerate material. Voice grips don't help either. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081208/e64b6efe/attachment.html>
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