[CAUT] STEAM! STEAM! STEAM!!!

[Ed Sutton]

Those pictures go back to a TTT column I wrote about 2 years ago.
I modified the clamps from something I saw in Alan Crane's shop at WSU.

I read about knuckle recovering in an English book on piano repairs.
If you have enough time, you can recover the knuckle core with action cloth.
Cut the leather and cloth off the rosewood core, bend a little piece of action cloth over it, glue it and clamp it. When it's dry, slice the cloth at an angle toward the core, to make a "round" contour. Clamp and glue buckskin strips as in the photo. Make sure the grain of the buckskin all runs in the same direction.

When I was working for a state university and used up the parts budget, I spent a day or two recovering knuckles this way. It worked rather well.

Ed Sutton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Sturm 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 3:48 PM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] STEAM! STEAM! STEAM!!!


  On Mar 13, 2009, at 10:53 AM, Kidwell, Ted W wrote:


    Thanks for the input. I’ll have to try this. I had seen this technique in a Journal article a year or so ago but it looked time consuming. If you say it is as fast as, and better than bolstering I’ll have to give it a try.

    One more question- do you treat the felt under the leather in any way before regluing?


  Well, in my experience it was easier than it seemed it would be. Knuckles vary, and actually cutting loose one side of a knuckle leather can vary from simple to touchy. It depends where the glue is. Sometimes there is quite a bit between the leather and the felt, so you need to break that loose by running something like a small screwdriver blade between those materials first. And sometimes there is quite a bit of glue squeeze out from putting the core into the slot in the shank, so there is glue between the leather and the shank. A sharp chisel is best for that. The actual glue joint between the leather and the core is usually a piece of cake, but the other areas can make it a little challenging.
  Then it is a matter of dabbing some glue, stretching the leather, and clamping, using the clamp to help stretch the leather (grab and pull).
  I haven't ever done anything to the felt core. I'm not sure what you _could_ do that would make a difference. It is usually a round cutout with a slot for the core, and would be hard to match or to adjust. In any case, stretching the leather around it makes for a much better round profile. And tight leather works a lot better than sloppy leather for the feel of the action.
  My memory is a little vague - it's been a while since I did this kind of job - but I'm thinking it took well less than 2 hours, closer to 1, on average. Less than one hour if things go particularly smoothly. It's a good plan to practice on some "archived used parts" to build up technique. For efficiency, it is best to cut loose all (or a section) first, then glue all.
  Regards,
  Fred Sturm
  University of New Mexico
  fssturm at unm.edu



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