<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> Steve,     A year or so ago, I posted about soaking lacquer (or keytop) out of hammers, using troughs made of gallon thinner can corners (cut off with tin snips to make triangular profile troughs, about an octave and a half of hammers long). Dipping the hammers into the troughs filled with a mix of acetone and lacquer thinner, letting sit, swishing, discarding, blotting with paper towel; then doing same again. Worked wonders. I highly recommend the process (especially in preference to drenching with whatever solvent, letting it run over the tails). It'll get you awfully close to pristine hammers. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico Steve Kabat wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE><style></style> Yo list-    I'm afraid that in lacquering a set of Steinway D hammers I started with too weak a solution(5:1), and now after multiple lacquerings I still have no "punch" in the treble from about E56 to the top.  The lacquer (3 and 4:1) at this point is just not penetrating to the tip of the molding as has been suggested in many of the fine and eminently valuable posts I've been poring over lo these many months. What's a tuner to do? I can hear that the sound is weak or "hollow" in the treble compared to the lower end, but am frustrated because I feel that I need to get something deep into the hammer but it ain't goin' there. Any suggestions would be most welcome.  Steve Kabat<a href="mailto:s.kabat@csuohio.edu">s.kabat@csuohio.edu</a></blockquote> </body> </html>