sluggish butt questions

[Carl Meyer]

I'm with you Tom.  Reaming or rebushing , Yuck!

Try this:  Using a tight butt (let me rephrase that).  Take a sample butt,  heat it quite hot with a hair dryer, then put a couple drops of 50/50 alcohol and water on the flange bushing, work the flange a few times.  Make sure the liquid penetrated the felt.  Now reheat until it loosens.  If it takes a lot of heat, so what?  Check it tomorrow.  I've also used starting fluid.  That might work for verdigris temporarily but it contains ether that is highly flammable.

I think lots of failures of this procedure are because the felt never got saturated enough or it was a verdigris problem that will never go away.

Save your education for when you are working on more valuable pianos.

The heat will encourage the liquid to soak in.

Carl Meyer  Assoc. PTG
Santa Clara, California
cmpiano@attbi.com 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Tvak@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2002 10:55 AM
Subject: sluggish butt questions


> Finally I got around to taking the action out of the Stieff upright (1890) 
> and the first order of business was to figure out why the hammer return is so 
> sluggish. So I took a hammer out of the action and held the flange, and the 
> hammer will just stay suspended in the 9 o'clock position.  CLP did not 
> improve the situation much, so I removed the pin and I could see some 
> corrosion where the flange bushings were.  I replaced the old pin (size 20 
> 1/2) with a new pin of the same size and voila!  It's exactly the same, no 
> improvement at all.  I tried a size 20 pin but it is too loose in the hammer 
> butt.
> 
> I know these are pretty basic questions, but I want to do this the right way; 
>  this is a pretty nice piano and has potential.  So...
> 
> Should I ream the bushings?  
> 
> Is there another (better?) way to shrink the bushings a bit to make this 20 
> 1/2 size pin looser?  
> 
> Will Goose Juice make a difference where CLP failed?
> 
> Is there a size 20 1/4 pin I don't know about?
> 
> Tell me I don't need to rebush, please, tell me I don't need to rebush.
> 
> This is an area (flanges/bushings) in which I am more ignorant than I'd like 
> to be, which is why I buy these old pianos and fix'em up.  I am forced to 
> solve problems with little monetary risk  (this piano cost me $100) and no 
> client looking over my shoulder.  (Plus, it's alot of fun.)
> 
> Any advice is (always) appreciated.
> 
> Tom Sivak