[CAUT] Bum set of NY hammers, I'm afraid

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, Dale,

At 04:39 PM 2/12/2011, you wrote:
>I'll have to read that and see how come you are 
>more successful with this than I have been.... which is mostly not at all.

I've not read Fred's article but can relate that 
for a long time I've very successfully used a 
variation of what he describes.  Much has to do 
with what was used to do the hardening, and, the 
outcome also seems to be affected by what carrier 
is used for flushing out the hardening compound.

If someone has used "plastic", you are kind of 
stuck with acetone, and that take different 
handling; and, usually, a much longer period of 
time to be effective.  While I prefer to flush 
out lacquer and lacquer sanding sealer with 
lacquer thinner, acetone will work.  In either 
case, the important piece (for me) has been to be 
patient and to let the solvent/carrier do it's 
work...perhaps several times, especially if 
plastic has been used as the hardening agent.

Since this is kind of cumulatively 
time-consuming, it's appropriate to do an 
analysis of which is going to be more 
cost-effective, going through some variation of 
the above process, or simply replacing the hammers and starting over.

Best.

Horace




>Dale S. Erwin
>www.Erwinspiano.com
>Custom restoration
>Ronsen Piano hammers
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu>
>To: caut at ptg.org
>Sent: Sat, Feb 12, 2011 12:57 pm
>Subject: Re: [CAUT] Bum set of NY hammers, I'm afraid
>
>On Feb 12, 2011, at 12:14 PM, Paul T Williams wrote:
>
>>what have y'all done to hammers when you think 
>>the initial "juicing" was less than 
>>perfect?  I'm hoping there is still hope for 
>>these hammers.  Remove and reinstall the 
>>original h/s/f's (that I smartly kept in a 
>>box); and juice the heck out of them, and then 
>>"start over"?  Is there a clean slate?
>
>Once again, you can soak out the existing 
>lacquer (most of it): see my June, 2009 PTJ 
>article (I can send you a pdf if you can't find 
>it). Then start over. And it is possible to use 
>the same tray method to apply lacquer - it will 
>be certain to penetrate to the core.
>Regards,
>Fred Sturm
><mailto:fssturm at unm.edu>fssturm at unm.edu
>“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a 
>hammer with which to shape it.” Brecht
>
>=