[CAUT] damper guider rails

[Richard Brekne]

There is not any guarantee that the old rail will line up well enough 
with the strings after a soundboard / bridge replacement. Sounds to me 
like a fine opportunity to make yourself a brand new rail.  This is 
actually quite easy and its a good thing to be able to know how to do.  
We did pretty much exactly this at the Oberlin Steinway seminar this 
summer as they had a few older Steinways with a double bushing cloth 
solution that they wanted to convert to single cloth bushings.

Marking the bushing holes is quite easy... drilling should be done with 
fence and drill press... you want to be dead accurate.  Since doing that 
this summer I've looked at many a guide rail.  Looks to me like lots of 
guys at factories get pretty damned good at free hand drilling.... and 
by that I mean they get good enough to get away with it... but not good 
enough to not leave significant room for improvement.

Cheers
RicB


    List,

    I just got our Steinway A back from getting a new board, bridges, etc
    replaced.  The damper guide rail was not reattached and no new holes
    were
    drilled in the board for the screws.

     >From where do I measure to align the rail back properly so the
    dampers
    will be in the right place?

    Thanks in advance!

    Paul