[CAUT] Rinsing lacquer from hammers

[PAULREVENKOJONES at aol.com]

Curious. If you follow the footnoted links, there are seemingly conflicting 
 statements about the ability of wool to "absorb" (either in the tube or in 
the  sidewalls). 
 
Paul
 
 
In a message dated 2/14/2011 7:31:30 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
davidlovepianos at comcast.net writes:

 
According to  Wikipedia: 
Wool fibers are _hygroscopic_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygroscopic) , 
meaning  they readily absorb moisture. Wool fibers are hollow._[3]_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#cite_note-2)  Wool can absorb moisture almost 
one-third of its own  weight._[4]_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool#cite_note-3)    
 
David  Love 
www.davidlovepianos.com
 
 
From:  caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred 
 Sturm
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 5:23 PM
To:  caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Rinsing lacquer from  hammers

 
 
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_ (mailto:fssturm at unm.edu) 
 
_http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm_ (http://www.youtube.com/fredsturm) 






-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20110214/57b0e8af/attachment.htm>