I am currently installing a complete set of parts on a S&S D. Several comments. First I checked the rep lever friction as I do on every set of wips I install (they all need repinning). Even though Mark says they aim for 5g friction in the rep post, the friction in this set was near zero. I attempted to repin. Maybe I am a total klutz, but I could not keep the bushings from popping out every time I tried pushing the pins in. I tried gluing the bushings in. No luck. Yes the holes for the felt are threaded, but this didn't keep the felt from popping out. Grrrrrrr. The pinning is not good on this set - 90% of the wippens were leaning to one side. I sent pics to Mark Burgett to confirm it. After talking with Bruce about it they suggested instead of papering the flanges to heat and bend the rep lever. That was quick and effective. I applied heat to the section of the lever between the post and the drop leather. Held the parts for a few seconds. So at least the interface between knuckle and rep lever is straight. Can't say about the capstan wip cushion interface because I haven't glued on the wip heels or installed the capstans yet. A future problem to deal with. These two problems (wip flange travelling and rep lever pinning) almost had me sending the set back. I decided to keep them even though the rep lever pinning is too free. But I will not buy these parts again until the hard bushings are available. As soon as they come out, I will order some so I can rebush and pin the rep lever to a more appropriate level of friction. About 85% of the hammer flanges needed papering. They were consistently travelling to the same side - all but two flanges travelled to the treble side. The friction in these hammer flanges was good - uniform at around 2-3g. I haven't hung the Ronsen Bacon hammers yet nor have I installed the backchecks. These will come. At this point and from this admittedly limited experience I am not convinced that they are ready for prime time. The machining issue - drilling for center pins - needs to be addressed. Wool as a bushing material in these parts is a very weak link - or maybe I just need to learn how to repin without pushing the bushings out. Never had that problem at all on wooden parts though. But I also have some reservations about the use of plastic bushings. My hesitation about this type of bushing is not about the sort of common problem we had with teflon bushings of old that resulted from incompatibility of wood and teflon. But rather my concern is one of touch. Teflon bushings have high initial resistance to movement, but once this initial resistance is overcome, there is almost no resistance. I can't help but think (or speculate might be more accurate) that this discontinuity is felt by the pianist and may present a control issue. The top of the keystroke requiring more energy, followed by the rest of the keystroke requiring much less energy. This discontinuity also exists with wool of course, but is much, much less than with teflon. This is to say that the touch resistance with wool bushings is much more even throughout the stroke than the old teflon bushings. Maybe they can come up with hard bushings that have the more consistent touch resistance of wool. Alan -- Alan McCoy, RPT Eastern Washington University amccoy at ewu.edu 509-359-4627 (message Pacific time) 509-999-9512 (cell Pacific time) ________________________________ From: <reggaepass at aol.com> Reply-To: CAUTlist <caut at ptg.org> Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 12:31:57 -0700 To: CAUTlist <caut at ptg.org> Subject: Re: [CAUT] WNG parts Yes, and if the next generation of bushing lives up to their pre-release publicity, this will be a real advantage for those of us who spend time annually dealing with pinning on the same pianos. Time will tell... Alan Eder -----Original Message----- From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Sun, Sep 6, 2009 11:55 am Subject: Re: [CAUT] WNG parts On Sep 6, 2009, at 6:58 AM, Chris Solliday wrote: My big concern with these parts is the felt bushings. According to Kirk Burkett, the felt bushing will soon be replaced by a hard bushing somewhat like the old Steinway teflon (except a somewhat different material, and since it will be in a plastic, not wooden, flange, not subject to hum idity change). So this question may disappear very quickly in the next generation of WNG parts (not that that answers the question, but it's something to bear in mind). He seemed to think that this would happen within a year or less, as they were essentially satisfied with testing results, and only needed to deal with manufacturing issues. According the the tests, with some number of million swings (as he said, having Pianodisc systems readily available is convenient for testing), the friction moved by only a gram or so (say, from 4 to 3), and "firmness" stayed virtually constant. But we shall see. It will require new pinning tools, which they have already made available (at least they had them on display), reamers and burnishers graduated in .0005" increments. I'm not sure if the burnishers apply to the new material. I would think not, but neglected to ask. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20090910/9329d6ef/attachment.htm>
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