brass rails

[Susan Kline]

At 11:33 PM 6/13/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Usually it's the butt plates that have the problem because they 
>wedged up on the pin and tightened with a screw that puts 
>pressure on the plate above the gap between it and the brass 
>rail.  It isn't too bad a job to just replace all the 
>plates...remove all dampers!  The new rails from Schaff take 
>some work as they are never exactly like the original, although 
>pretty darn close.  
>
>David Ilvedson, RPT
>Pacifica, CA
>

list --

On the other hand, if the tongues on the rail are where the problem
is, replacing all the butt plates is a recipe for disaster. 
(Don't ask ... I'm still trying to forget.) In that case, replacing 
only the bad notes (which will probably need repair clips) is 
indicated. The other notes will probably last awhile longer, but 
only if they are not disturbed. 

I believe that this debacle is more likely to occur on a Kimball
(there, now you don't need to ask) with its horizontally mounted 
rail. It's also good to have some spare Kimball damper plates,
with the integral spring, though they fail less often. I did see
someone's ingenious repair of a broken Kimball damper spring/plate: 
damper lever mounted on the (double-sided) rail with a standard Kimball
butt plate; repair damper spring (with the little hook that 
goes around the damper screw head) mounted (new flange screw added) 
on back of the hammer spring rail, upside down so the spring ended up 
in the damper lever spring groove. It worked just fine.

Yours,

Susan


Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com		

"The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a
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