[CAUT] Rinsing lacquer from hammers

[Fred Sturm]

On Feb 13, 2011, at 8:40 AM, Dale Erwin wrote:

>    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


	This statement caught my eye, and has made me wonder. Are wool  
fibers, in fact, hollow? I sort of doubt it, but I don't know. Does  
anyone actually know for certain?
	 My take on wool absorbing water is not that there is a "hollow spot  
inside to hold it," but that the wool fibers themselves (that is, the  
material itself of the fibers, the proteins I suppose) "attract" and  
"absorb" the water (quotes because I'm sure there are scientific terms  
for these things that I don't happen to know). Kind of like the  
protein in gelatin, or in hide glue. In any case, the individual  
fibers do swell in the presence of water - I am pretty certain of  
that. In swelling, they spread out their little scales so that those  
will tend to interlock with the scales of other fibers, all of them  
being pressed more tightly together because the space between them is  
taken up by all of them swelling, if they are constrained in some way  
(as in center bushing felt, for instance, constrained between the pin  
and the wood). This is a part of the felting process.
	Do they swell with lacquer, or the various solvents associated with  
it? I don't think so. In any case, drenching hammers in lacquer  
thinner, acetone, or alcohol doesn't seem to make them expand, or  
leave them larger than before. Water does make them expand and they  
end up larger than before.
	So I don't think we know whether the solids in lacquer penetrate the  
wool fibers when we dope hammers. I have always pictured it as coating  
the fibers. And have wished that someone would do electron micrography  
on lacquered hammers so we could see.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm

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