Hi Dave, Not dealing with the presumed salt deposition as such, but with "crusty" dampers in general, I have had varying degrees of success in stroking the damper face with a disposal nail file and/or removing the action and applying a combination of water and fabric softner, although it is not easy to control the effects of the latter. Quite often, if there is just a hearty amount of "zinging" in the sound as the damper returns, the nail file stroking really helps. And only perhaps half a dozen light strokes at that. Robin Blankenship ----- Original Message ----- From: piannaman at aol.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 9:24 AM Subject: softening crusty dampers Hi folks, A couple of days ago, I worked on a piano that has spent a good portions of it's life down by the old seashore. There's rust in various places, but nothing is disintegrating yet. It's a '70s aeolian console (aaargh!). The most annoying problem, at least to the customer, is the buzzing sound created when the dampers seat on the strings. The crust that has accumulated over time by the salt sea air has hardened the dampers considerably. I've been wondering if anyone on this list has tried the various solutions and/or voicing techniques that are commonly used on hammers to deal with this. My thoughts: squeeze, needle, file. Other possibilites: alcohol-water, fabric softener, steam It isn't worth doing a damper replacement, IMHO. That would probably cost her more than she paid for the pso. Any comments or ideas? Thanks, Dave Stahl Dave Stahl Piano Service 650-224-3560 dstahlpiano at sbcglobal.net http://dstahlpiano.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20060920/dd541387/attachment.html
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