stripped S&S flange screws

[A440A@aol.com]

Richard Boyington asks;

>Is
>there any effective method of tightening these up, short of the difficult
job
>of replacing the rail itself?

     Depends on what you mean by effective.   To some , effective is what
gets the instrument out the door.
     To others,  effective means they can sit in the audience of a concert
hall, watching some maniac pound out a concerto, and not wonder how big a
stink it would be if one of the middle hammer shanks left the rail.

     The wooden dowel is the problem here,  the uncompromised repair is the
replacement of the wooden dowel,  but that can be tricky.  Replacing the rail
in toto, is probably easier, if you can maintain tolerances, and not char the
core during soldering.

    In situations where the rail had to be repaired in place,  I have had
long term success, under heavy use, by doing the following:

  Use of a catalytic resin compound such as used in auto body repair.  This
stuff sets up quite hard, and quick, so you have to have the prep done
properly.

1) Open the screw hole up with a drill bit the same diameter as the hole in
the brass rail, ( but not through the bottom!). This provides a solid base
for the resin.
2) Lube the screw and the area around the screw hole.
3) Fill the hole halfway with resin, and insert the screw, aligning it with
the two adjacent screws, which should be in their holes without the flanges.
 NOW THIS IS ATHE CRITICAL PART!
4) The screw in the resin must be farther down in the hole than it will be
when the flange is attached!!   This allows there to be some clearance on the
bottom of the threads, without which, the screw will destroy its threads when
it bottoms out simultaneously on the flange and bottom of hole.
 5) The resin should be hard as a rock in 1/2 hour, so  remove the screw, and
with a dremel grinding disk, remove all the protruding resin from the top of
the hole.  Don't try to cut the excess off with a knife, you will probably
crack the glass sleeve you have just so carefully made.

Good luck,  and oh, by the way.  If the piano is in the shop, and it is a
Steinway, and there are numerous stripped holes,   go on an replace the rail,
 even the best repair is a band-aid.

Regards to all,
Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.