Words of wisdom from the expert. ed
At 08:02 PM 11/1/2006 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >I see that I have just achieved my long overdue 15 minutes of fame! Anyway, >yes, clean saliva is usually perfectly fine, but roll a wad of soft cotton >onto a thin swab stick so that it is long and elongate, not short >and stubby, >and only lightly moisten it. Then gently roll it over the soiled area of >the >soundboard. Warning: one some lutes it can remove some of the finish. I >recently removed some dirt from one of my Tomlinson lutes and discovered >that >some of the varnish finish was removed when the area dried. However, I >replaced some varnish into that area and all was ok afterwards. > >I am very fastidious with my lutes and also clean the dirt from the >fingerboards and even on the backside of the neck, as well as the body >fret area and >where the right arm touches the bottom of the lute. > >There is a "synthetic saliva" formula consisting of triammonium citrate that >can also be used, but I still prefer my own mouth moisture. > >"Spit" cleanings are commonly and routinely done to clean unvarnished >paintings (amazing how much dirt accumulates on the surfaces of paintings >in clean >museum environments just from the visitor traffic bringing in dirt from the >street outside!) and are often done as a preliminary step before varnish >removal from varnished paintings. These days, however, I use the triammonium >citrate solution on paintings and sometimes a solution even more potent. > >Kenneth Be > >In a message dated 11/1/2006 4:30:02 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >That suggestion usually shocks some people. But it was >from Kenneth Be, a conservator at the Cleveland Museum >of Fine Arts. They actually use spit to clean the grime >of centuries from paintings by the old masters. So he >uses spit also to clean his lutes. But perhaps he can >explain more. > >==ajn > > > > >-- > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
