Steinway plate Bushings... NO! reply

[pianoman]

Thanks Rob
The way conversations are going it sounded like some are doing this.
James Grebe
R.P.T. from St. Louis
pianoman@inlink.com
"I am a better tuner now than  ever  before"

----------
> From: Robert Goodale <Robert.Goodale@nau.edu>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: Steinway plate Bushings... NO!
> Date: Thursday, January 01, 1998 11:37 AM
> 
> pianoman wrote:
> > 
> >         I wonder what happens when you get to the point of drilling out
the
> > Steinway plate to accept plate bushings and the holes in the lower
middle
> > start to overlap one another?
> >         Are all Steinways of the same model (in the older ones you
would be doing
> > this too), have their plate holes drilled in exactly the same place so
you
> > could say one model you can do this but another model you could not?
> 
> 
> Steinway plates should NEVER be bored out to accept plate bushings.
> Steinways and other similarly designed pianos don't have plate bushings
> because that is the way the engineers painstakingly designed them. The
> tension stresses in these instruments are completly different than
> pianos with bushings, and installing them dramatically alters this. 
> 
> This area of the plate (also called the "plate webbing"), is
> considerably thinner than on pianos designed for plate bushings. Time
> and time again, stories have been told of technicians finding beautiful
> Steinway pianos with cracked, fractured, or missing plate webbing pieces
> because a previous technician bored it out to accept bushings in a
> previous rebuild. Furthermore, it is simply asthetically WRONG.
> Fundamental rule of rebuilding: When in doubt, always duplicate. 
> 
> I won't (and can't) elaborate on the reasons why you don't install plate
> bushings in Steinways any further. I am not an engineer. BUT... I have
> heard numerous "structural" reasons why you don't do this from a variety
> of well respected and experienced rebuilders many times over the years.
> Perhaps someone else better experienced in Steinway engineering can
> contribute to my point.
> 
> Rob Goodale, RPT
> Staff tech, Northern Arizona U.