YC Brackets, again

[Avery Todd]

List,

I have some questions about this for those of you who've actually
been through it. How does one know for SURE that it's the "growing"
bracket syndrome?

I've never actually seen it personally but I looked at a Young
Chang G-157, #059894 today that had hammers blocking on the
strings when the key was played. I could usually trip the jack
by hand and the hammer would drop some.

What I DIDN'T see was everything I've read about it. I was able
to easily pull the action out; the drop screws didn't scrape on
the underside of the pin block, etc.

Besides the blocking, all I could see was that the underside of
the drop screw was AWFULLY close to the front edge of the wippen
buckskin and the jacks were mostly WAY too far back under the
knuckle.

Besides measuring the spread (which I don't know what it's supposed
to be) how can one know for sure?

It's had water leak/damage in the middle and 1st treble section and
the string and plate are rusty there. I can also see evidence of it
by stains on the action rails and a few of the shanks.

I just don't want to do the "growing action brackets" thing without
being sure. Any ideas how I can BE sure? Thanks.

Avery