While we're talking about wool fiber scales, David Stanwood lives on Martha's Vineyard and boards the ferry to the island next to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, where they have such a scanning electron microscope. He was talking to someone who worked there, and got him to scan some felt. One of the interesting things he learned is that the scales work like sandpaper, scrubbing the plating from center pins and so on. Micro-fine Teflon (tm) powder is just the right size so that the tiny spheres just fit under the loose end of those scales, and that's why it makes a perfect lubricant for felt. --Cy-- Cy Shuster, RPT Albuquerque, NM www.shusterpiano.com www.facebook.com/shusterpiano On Feb 14, 2011, at 7:09 PM, Ed Sutton wrote: > Fred, you can see in this picture that the fibers have a scaly surface. My memory, unconfirmed by any direct experiments, is that the water absorption and also the attachment of sizings, such as lacquer or glue, has to do with these scales. At least a light sizing stiffens the fibers without actually gluing them together. This goes back to my interest in paper, and may not apply to piano hammers. > Ed Sutton > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20110214/57e95fd0/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC