LeatherKey Bushings

[Terry]

Any recommendations on how to "fit" the leather? Spurlock recommends that
when dry fitting a cloth bushing you should be able to pick the key up with
a key pin insterted into the dry-bushed mortise, but when you shake the pin,
the key will fall off. How should one fit the leather?

Terry Farrell

>
> Hi Dale
>
> We agree once more :)  I can echo your experience concerning older
> Bossies, and some Bluthners and scattered this and thats.  Leather seems
> to have gotten a largely undeserved bad rap. Perhaps this is due to the
> probability that appropriate lubrication for the application was either
> lacking or far too scantily applied back through time.  I aggree with
> David Stanwood that leather has a tendancy to get sluggish if not kept
> slick.  Teflon powder is my choice for sure. With felt I like to soak
> with Protek. Leather wears much better to be sure but then on the other
> hand if too eagerly sized it gets a bit noisy.  All in all tho.. in high
> use situations that allow for reasonably frequent service visits, I
> would choose a good leather hands down
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>
> Davids & Terry
>   my limited exposure to leather is that it holds up for a very long  time
&
> seeing that many of our performance pianos turn a new set of nicely  fit
> bushings to a sloppy fit in about a years time leaves me frustrated. So
Trix & I
> are currently finding  leather supply & tehcs to work with  it to see if
this
> will alleviate this problem. Imho It simply isn't  practical to replace a
set
> of keybushings every year or so.
>    I've seen many older Bosy's & Euro pianos with bushing at  least 100
years
> old that were fit right up to a new type tolerance of a few  thous. Really
> amazing. I remember that Joel & Pris Rapport used a lot of  leather
bushings as
> well.
>   Occasional lubrication would be easy & preferrable to many sets  of
> bushings & continual sloppy keys
>    Dale
>
> My  2cents...
>
> Leather has a very high coefficient friction and leather  bushing are an
> absolute disaster unless are liberally treated with  microfine teflon
> powder.  Without dry lube the key plays a lot harder  with a sideways
> glancing stroke and the bushings wear out and start to get  noisy very
> quickly.... the same goes for cloth bushings but it is not as  critical as
> with leather...
>
> You can test this easily by putting a  little side pressure on the front
key
> pin as you move the key up and  down....  It takes a lot more force to
move
> the key with a little  side pressure if the bushing has not been treated
> with dry  lube...
>
> David Stanwood
>
>
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