[CAUT] Rinsing lacquer from hammers

[Israel Stein]

Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:40:00 -0500 
Dale Erwin <erwinspiano at aol.com>:
>   Hi Horace
>   Ok, so its getting clearer.
>   SO to be crysta,l are the hammers put upside down or crown down into a thinner solution bath and left submerged for 24 hours and then a fresh wash of stuff to hose down the entire set to wash the lac out after that?
>     I'm curious. I learned from Jack Brand (during the Weickert felt trials) at Wurzen felt that wool fibers are hollow, which is why they can hold so much moisture. ie rugs, sweaters etc...... SO you see the lac. not only surrounds and stiffens the fibers on the outside but also on the inside.  With the hammer acting as a sponge like device how successful is the lacquer extraction process. IE. 100 %...50%.
>   T'would seem like it will be difficult to persuade the felt fibers to release the internal saturation of hollow fibers.
>    Thoughts. war stories?

Dale,

About two years ago we "rinsed out" a 
set of pre-lacquered NY Steinway hammers 
that never did voice up right on one of 
our concert hall "D"s here at San 
Francisco State. We followed the 
procedure recommended by Fred Sturm - I 
believe that I posted about it here on 
CAUT, so you can find it all in the 
archives. Since there was no way of 
telling how the hammers sounded before 
the factory juicing, there is no way of 
telling how large a percentage of the 
solids actually got rinsed out. We did 
both lacquer thinner rinses and Acetone 
rinses - since it was possible that what 
was used at the factory might have been 
some sort of plastic...  All I know is 
that the hammers ended up being softer - 
a lot softer - than when we got them 
from the factory.

The end of the story is that we did not 
reuse these hammers on the same piano, 
but put them on a much older "D" in the 
orchestra rehearsal room - where I was 
able to get them up to adequate tone, 
juicing from scratch. On the stage piano 
we put a set of vintage 1990's NY 
Steinway factory hammers - which we had 
on the shelf - and which gave us better 
(though somewhat underwhelming) results. 
Now, after a year+ of miscellaneous use 
(jazz, pop, accompaniment, classes), the 
tone is starting to come in nicely - to 
the point that students and visiting 
artists are again choosing this piano. 
Faculty are still sticking with their 
"favorites"...

Israel Stein