Haunted Flanges

[Wimblees@aol.com]

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In a message dated 4/29/03 5:27:36 PM Central Daylight Time, pdtek@mchsi.com 
writes:

> After treating some stubborn wippen flanges on a Wurlitzer console with 
> little success, I am repinning them. I started with the top section and 
> then started to reinstall them. After replacing a few, I was shocked to 
> find that they were still very tight. No, they can't be. If anything I 
> pinned them a little on the loose side. While moving a wippen up and down I 
> slowly loosened the screw to find the looser the screw got, the freer the 
> center felt.
>   
> Well its getting late so I will deal with this tomorrow, but the only thing 
> I can think of off hand is that the flange and the rail are not mating well 
> and tightening the screw is distorting the flange and forcing the "legs" 
> together causing binding on the wippen. Does this sound like a good guess? 
> Anyone run into this? Best cure?
>   
> The irony is that the flanges may not have needed to be repinned in the 
> first place. When ever I had removed one after treatment to check it by 
> hand, it usually would not feel too tight. Hmmmm....well its getting 
> repinned anyway which is still probably best for the long haul, if I can 
> get rid of the binding problem.
>   
> Dave Bunch
> 

Dave

Would you believe I just got done working on a Wurly console with the same 
problem. I too repined the flanges and then had trouble with the wippen. The 
problem is the center pin is bending. There is so little room between the 
flanges, that when you tighten the screw, the centerpin will actually push 
against the centerpin of its neighbor, and bend a little. That is what is 
causing the wippen not to work right. 

When I was in the process of solving the problem, I noticed that when I 
inserted the pin with the pin removing/installing tool, the flange is being 
pushed to the side where the pin comes out. There is a small gap between the 
flange and the wippen base. This makes the pin just a little too long. 

To remedy this problem, push the flange back against the wippen base, and 
then cut off the pin. If you go to one where you've already cut off the pin, 
and do this, you'll see that there is a half a millimeter left sticking out. 
That is all that is needed to bind the flange. 

I hope this solves your problem. It's only in the treble area. BTW, I reamed 
and repinned all the wippen flanges. I used the Mannino reamer. I took out a 
.50 pin, reamed using a .51 brouch, and then repinned with a .50 pin. That 
worked best for me. I also repinned all the hammer flanges, and I had to 
repin a number of jacks too, even though I lubed the hell out of them. 
Unfortunately, I had to do the jacks at the customer's house, because you 
can't really tell if the jacks are tight until you get the action in the 
piano.

Good luck

Wim 

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