At 12:30 AM 3/13/98 -0800, you wrote: >Hi Jim Bryant, > >If we are trying to get the flange to swell then *why* are we applying the >water on the bushing? And if all you want to do is *press* the felt, why >not just use dry heat! > Hi Don, Jim As someone who grew up in the days when one ironed the laundry, I can tell you that the moisture definitely gets at the fibers and makes the heat far more effective. Wool is a special case. When it gets wet the fibers kink and tangle. That's why you can't throw a wool sweater in the washer and dryer and expect to get the same sized garment back out. My feeling is that the water and alchohol affect the wool more than the wood. The water gets into the wool, which tries to kink and matt, but it is between a rock and a hard place. The wood is far firmer than it is, and the wood is swelling as well. So the wool fibers conform to the space they are confined in, and "take a set" while wet, like hair in curlers. While they're wet the flange is more or less seized up. Once everything is dry again, the wool retains the shape it has set in, but it has shrunk from drying. The wood has shrunk back to its original size as well: free but good-fitting bushing, fairly permanently. Anyway, that's the way it seems to me. Regards, Susan Susan Kline P.O. Box 1651 Philomath, OR 97370 skline@proaxis.com "Time will end all my troubles, but I don't always approve of Time's methods." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC