Moving Knuckle position with the Kaplan Jig

[Fred Sturm]

--On Wednesday, August 11, 2004 8:45 PM -0400 Erwinspiano@aol.com wrote:

>   How many of us would be interested in a jig like this? Let me know.
> What would it be worth to purchase a premade jig from Spurlock or Farrel
> or anyone willing to make it.? Just curious    Cheers
>    Dale Erwin

Hi Dale,
	I'd be very interested. There are a lot of cases out there where knuckle 
replacement would be a good thing, if the job were fairly easy and 
predictable, and it sounds like the jig does that. I'm thinking
1) All those replaced Steinway actions where the poor tech was well-meaning 
and was reproducing the original geometry - how many thousands of those are 
out there? I confess to contributing a couple or three myself. A shame to 
throw away all that work and all those parts to get it right, when a simple 
morning's work could get it just as right.
2) Lots of knuckles out there that are impregnated thoroughly with graphite 
grease, shanks otherwise not too bad.
3) Hard knuckles. A lot of those coming out of China at the moment, 
especially troublesome when in connection with player units (customer buys 
piano to provide nice background music for parties. Hammers pretty hard, 
music too loud. Customer adjusts player to pianissimo. Return noise turns 
out to be louder than music. I've come across a couple cases of this in 
recent days - return noise is exacerbated by the fact that the solenoids 
retract faster than a pianist's fingers).
	So availability of such a jig would be a real boon to the industry, IMO. 
As it stands now, I shy away from such jobs because they are so 
unpredictable. Sometimes the old knuckles come out real slick and easy, and 
the new ones fit right into the old groove. Sometimes. With this jig, you'd 
have complete control.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico