Chickering Brass Flanges

[Horace Greeley]

Michael,

Hmmm - one might have suspected that the first "job" of 2000 would involve
an antedeluvian (well, ok, at least antebellum) Chickering.

As to the shanks, Renner used to make shanks with "close enough" pin to
knuckle measurements to be usable.  The trick was to machine down the
sides of the shanks to match the more narrow Chickering originals.  It
is fairly easy to make a jig for this purpose; over the years I have
used both a router setup and a disk sander.  The trick, of course, is
to get the material removed equally from both sides...you knew that.

The flanges are another matter.  I have always felt that part of
Chickering's trouble was being just a bit too far ahead of whatever
curve was acceptable.  The use of brass in actions actually made
very good sense at the time (as does the use of graphite action parts,
and laminated soundboards today).  From what I can make out from
your pictures, the ones with which you are dealing are not the ones
with some extra convolutions at the tongue.  That being the case,
a competent machinist should be able to mill you some of these
from (relatively) standard brass stock.  Having worked on a number of
these over the years, let me urge you to have that worthy make a
couple dozen, not just the four or five you need at the moment.

Also, while I would certainly like to know what methods others
have used, I (eventually) gave up trying to glue new bushings
into these flanges, and used the tightest weave cloth I could find,
sized with a heated steel wire (held in a truly Harvey-esque device
constructed from a 25 watt soldering iron with a light dimmer in
its line cord).  "Normal" gluing either did not hold against the
brass, or permeated the cloth - making it hard beyond use.

Cool pictures, by the way - How did you do that? Any particular
suggestions?

Thanks, and best of luck.

Horace



At 06:31 PM 12/31/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>I have a 1895 Chickering grand which was just purchased by a private
>customer. I wants to replace the hammers and shanks using the existing
>setup. I am looking for a supplier of the brass flanges as well as what
>would now be considered custom shanks.  See the pictures at the link
>below.
>
>I only need 5 or 6 flanges.  We plan to rebush the brass.  We will need
>shanks.
>
>You help would be appreciated.  Please respond to the email address in
>my signature.  Thanks.
>
>http://216.149.138.152/images/brassflnge1.jpg
>http://216.149.138.152/images/brassflnge2.jpg
>--
>Michael Wathen
>http://www.wapin.com

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Horace Greeley, 			email:	hgreeley@stanford.edu	
CNA, MCP, RPT				
Systems Analyst/Engineer		voice:	650.725.9062
Controller's Office			fax:	650.725.8014
Stanford University
651 Serra St., RM 100, MC 6215
Stanford, CA 94305-6215

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