Upright Wippen Rebuilding Questions

[Keith Roberts]

Terry,
    Are you really holding the felts on the wippens for a minute? You must
be using cold hide glue or you're not working your hot hide glue right. Make
sure it's not to thick, spread it evenly and set  the felt on it and lightly
align it. Wait till the glue gels as it cools, about 5 sec or so while you
check out the alignment, then smush it flat as you push it into place. Count
to one and go on to the next. If you smush to soon, the glue penetrates the
felt farther than needed which reduces the effective thickness of the felt.
When it dries, the glue shrinks up and draws the felt down tight (somewhat),
so you really don't need a lot of clamping pressure, just position it with
the proper amount of glue. Glue up as many as you can with out dipping the
brush back in the pot and things will go much faster. If you are worried
about how much glue you are using, let them set up good and take a pair of
pliers and rip one off. Or a razor blade and cut it off. Then scrape or
grind the old glue off. That should convince you or refine your technique.
Keith Roberts

----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: Upright Wippen Rebuilding Questions


It sure takes a lot of time to glue all those little piece of felt and stuff
on a set of wippens. >
> Terry Farrell
>