On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:13 AM, Richard Brekne wrote: > probably rather expensive compared to a water alcohol soak if one > first wants to expand the hammer I got some VS Profelt a few days ago and did some preliminary examination. My take is that it is probably as high as 80-90% water, a wee bit of alcohol (to reduce surface tension of the water and make it penetrate fabric easier), some fabric softener, and the silicone polymer. The residue from evaporating it is on the oily side in texture, quite slippery (that's mostly the silicone). How did I come up with this guesstimate? Looks, smell and texture to start with. It's a lot "thicker" than alcohol, and evaporates like water, in the sense of speed of evaporation and how cold it makes the skin feel (a dab on the back of the hand, compared to water and to alcohol and to 50/50 water alcohol). The smell is a "laundry" smell, meaning it is probably one of the milder perfumes put into fabric softeners. Definitely no alcohol smell to my nose. It doesn't flame (like brandy, which is maybe 80 proof, or 40% alcohol). All of which means that I would personally keep it away from hammers (a bit brushed on the strike surface might be okay) and action centers, on the grounds of being far too much water. It is probably convenient and effective for key bushings and wipp cushions and the like. I got some unscented fabric softener (hard to find), and will do a bit of experimentation on things like hard dampers and hammers. As I wrote in an earlier post, Nick Gravagne swore by alcohol and fabric softener for those rock hard hammers. I never got around to trying. For dampers, I would try more water in the formulation. Certainly the silicone is useless for both applications. At $12 a quart, VSP is too pricey for my wallet unless it turns out to be very extra special indeed, if I can buy a lifetime supply of softener for $5, and use either powdered teflon or Protek for lubrication. I'll be trying it out to see whether it out-performs "homebrew." Or steaming and heated cauls for key bushings. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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