[pianotech] Fixing stripped screws

Bruce Dornfeld bdornfeld at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 29 19:58:18 PDT 2009


I have seen and removed, with difficulty, too many screws that were "fixed"
with some type of wood putty.  You will know them when you see them.  When
you do manage to get the screw out, the threads are covered with wood putty.
Perhaps Paul's friend gets different results with his new pressboard
construction, but I would not recommend this for piano use.  You usually get
the screw out by pulling it out, the threads become incidental.

 

Buckskin and wood glue works great.  I carry several thicknesses of leather.
Thin stuff like you might use to recover hammer butts or thinner is great
for action screw holes.  I have a piece of my late father's suede hat that
is much thicker and works great in large holes.  A while back, I removed all
of the grand leg and lyre screws from a grand.  The holes were stripped and
the movers used packing tape to hold them in.  I found out because they also
used the longer leg screws in the lyre and the action would not shift or
come out because of the screws going through the lyre, and then going
through the keybed and into the action frame.  Getting the tape and residue
off of the screws was the pain in the butt part of that job.  Parts of my
dad's old hat are still in that piano!

 

Bruce Dornfeld, RPT

bdornfeld at earthlink.net

North Shore Chapter

 

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