Old Steinway upright - new yamaha dampers?

[Newton Hunt]

Hi Mark, long time no hear.

I have one of those beasties and did another one when I swore never to
do another,  Ah, well.

On mine I will only replace the bass dampers, the treble are
wonderfully soft and efficient so why change them.  The levers are in
good shape as well.

My recommendation is to keep the old block if at all possible.  The
new blocks are not drilled at the same angles as are the original
since they are intended to be generic which creates an unbelievable
amount of bending.  Mind or without barrels but they are tight as they
are and I will disturb them as little as possible.  I have installed
new butts so a certain amount of new bending is involved anyway.

Keep, restore and barrel the original or make certain the new ones
have the same angles as yours.  Little wooden barrels and blocks cane
be a problem because of the wire to damper felt dimension.  There is
VERY little room for changing the working arcs of the damper levers to
you need to be extra careful here.

Lots of luck.

		Newton