Vellum Hinges

John Delacour JD at Pianomaker.co.uk
Mon Feb 19 09:58:08 MST 2007


At 9:54 am -0500 19/2/07, Ed Sutton wrote:

>Further elaboration of your techniques would be of interest to a 
>small number of subscribers to this list.
>
>Can you explain what is a vellum saw?  What kind of glue do you use? 
>What do you do when the hinge is in the middle of a long strip of 
>hinges?  Do you only repair full sets, or do you sometimes replace 
>single hinges?
>
>On Feb 17, 2007 6:52 PM From: Kerry Cooper wrote:
>
>>I would not put the damper fingers in water to remove the vellum. This
>>swells the finger and can also make the abstract twist when drying. Use a
>>vellum saw to cut out the old vellum, it follows the old vellum if you are
>>careful.

I have seen many repairs done with a vellum saw and without exception 
they have been disastrous.  The pictures below show a damper body 
with the vellum removed using water.  I challenge anyone in the world 
to achieve such a clean result using a saw, let alone do it 
successfully 68 times.  Vellum is much tougher than  wood.

   

Besides that it is far quicker. It takes about 1 minute per damper to 
achieve a perfectly clean kerf.  The wood (maple in the case of the 
Blüthner) is in conact with water for 30 seconds and is thoroughly 
wiped dry once the vellum is out and the kerf free of glue.  With 
such a short and superficial exposure to humidity there is no 
possibility of warping.

>>To find a replacement vellum, I use old drum skins, as these are of the
>>thickness needed to do the job, normally around 0.15 mm. I have replace many
>>sets of these hinges with great success.

I have now completed the work of removing all the Blüthner dampers, 
most of the hinges being intact.  The thickness of the kerf is 0.5 
mm. and the thickness of the original vellum used (thoroughly cleaned 
of glue) is fairly uniform at 0.4 mm. with a few slightly thinner, 
the thinnest being 0.35 mm.

I would like to see some close-up photographs of this job done with a 
saw, together with the time-sheet.

JD



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