Lyre Braces

[Avery Todd]

Jon,

I don't really know. I've never had the problem he talks about. Sorry.

Avery

At 05:39 PM 04/23/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Avery,
>Is there a reason that epoxy wouldn't work to set the brass sleeve in 
>place in the lyre brace?  Joel's solution sounds as if it works well; I'm 
>just looking into alternatives.
>
>Respectfully,
>Jon
>
>>
>>I sent this to Joel Rappaport and below are his comments about it (with
>>his permission):
>>
>>>  As far as the comments from Michelle L Stranges on the current Baldwin
>>>system, if it is the same system that we experienced for the last four
>>>summers at Tanglewood, all I can say is "no, no, No NO" IMHO.  Those little
>>>T-screws go into a brass sleeve that is knurled and inserted into a hole
>>>drilled into the top of the wooden support stick.  Problem is, the sleeve
>>>goes into end grain and even though knurled, has a tendency to become loose
>>>so that not only is the stick no longer adjustable, you can't shorten it
>>>enough to remove it.  So the whole lyre now has to come off to repair the
>>>exquisitely engineered feature.  The factory 'solution' is to drop CA glue
>>>around the sleeve to 'fix' it in the wood.  We tried that at Tanglewood and
>>>the result was that the sleeve then twirled around in the CA glue instead of
>>>the wood.  We had to (with great trouble) remove the sleeve and glue veneer
>>>into the hole to provide some flat grain, then reinsert the sleeve.  That
>>>was the only thing that worked.  This was probably the one most common
>>>complaint we had to trouble shoot, even more than tuning calls.
>>>Ted Sambell's and Denis Brassard's invention sounds so much better.  And I
>>>have seen the threaded brass cup on Bösendorfer grands, too.  It's a nice,
>>>simple and _workable_ solution.
>
>Jon Ralinovsky
>Piano Technician
>Department of Music
>Miami University
>513/529-6548