<HTML>   Z! Reinhardt wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Hi List! Once again -- I'm looking for insights and details concerning juices.  This time I'd like to hear opinions on juices for hardening hammers.  Some of the concoctions I've heard about in recent discussions include: lacquer and lacquer thinner lacquer and acetone sanding sealer and ... collodion and ... ether? acrylic (keytops or pellets) and acetone vinyl and acetone  </BLOCKQUOTE> André Oorebeek writes: Hello Mr. Z! Reinhardt, From my experience as a subscriber to this list (and mainly in the past), I seem to remember that especially Americans probably have the most experience in doping hammers, due to the fact that American hammers are soft from the beginning. My own experience with hammer dopes is limited, because I live in Europe, and, as you probably know, European hammermakers produce hardened hammerheads. Sometimes, however, a "refelting" might turn out to be a little too soft in some sections. In that case a hammerfelt reinforcer is of course needed. In the Steinway Factory in Hamburg they check each grand after final voicing for "soft spots", and then use lacquer and lacquer thinner (Zarpon laquer) as a hardener. It works very well and smells heavenly too! I personally have mainly used collodium (existing of collodium, ether and alcohol), which also is a Steinway recepy. Collodium is amongst others being used in nail polish as a hardener, and it smells pretty awful, like a hospital, because of the ether. On the other hand, it too works very well as a hammer hardener, and, it works VERY fast,  and I like the end result very much. From what I understood from your American colleagues, icollodium seems hard to obtain in your Country. Here too, it is very hard to get, and it has cost me a considerable amount of time, persistence and energy to make the people in the pharmacy nearby understand that I am not a junky, but instead an "honest" (!) pianotech. So..in th end  I got it, and they now call me "het collodium mannetje", meaning something like "the funny collodium guy"......... haha. Nowadays, I must point out to you, there is also available in Germany, a felt by the name of "Wurzen Filz". It originally came from a very old factory in the East of Germany, and was used by many very well known pianomakers in "them olden days". After the opening up of East Germany, the Renner Factory  (and now maybe others?) was able to re-produce that very same felt, and it is now being used by various piano factories. The quality is outstanding, the wool fibers are very fine, and the tone is richer than most  hammers I know of. It is hardly necessary to do a voicing at all, and sometimes, the hight treble may need "some" hammerdope. This development in "felt land" is remarkable, because it puts us Europeans right in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, because we were, and are, totally conditioned on voicing hammers down with needles, whereas you Americans most often (as far as my limited brain capacity allows me) do it the other way around, "juicing up" hammers because they are soft from the start. Interesting neh? André Oorebeek        </HTML>