brass hammer rails repair or replace?

[Les Smith]

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, Andy&Chris Taylor wrote:

> Hi
> I just acquired a nice old Baldwin Ellington upright, A very pretty tiger
> Oak piano, great tone. it was Free and now I know why.
> 
> This piano will most likely become a orchestration (I make all the
> components myself but the spoolframe) so it will most likely get some hard
> use.
> 
> The piano action has a brass hammer butt flange, YUCK! and some hammers are
> falling out and getting loose. its terrible! This is the first Baldwin
> upright I have ever seen with this type of hammer mounting all the rest I
> have seen have flanges!
> 
> I have a few choices to make and I am in need of advice.
> 
> repair the brass rail?
> replace the brass rail?
> buy some new butts and "convert" the action to a 'flange type"(it is
> possible I think) it does need new butts and hammers anyway.
> forget this piano and choose another?

Throw that (potential) sucker out and get another piano which uses
standard wooden flanges. Why do you think that piano was free?

One of the most outstanding upright player pianos to come out of the
early part of this century was the Bush and Lane, which has been written
about extensively here in the past (see archives). This was an extremely
high quality instrument. Early, pre-player Bush and Lane pianos used a
brass-rail flange action, HOWEVER, in 1914, when they got into players
in a BIG WAY, by acquiring the Farrand Piano Company, they specifically
changed their piano actions from brass-rail flanges to wooden flanges
because of concerns about the former being able to stand up to the pound-
ing associated with a top-of-the-line player action like theirs. They
never had occasion to regret that decision and close inspection on exist-
ing B&L players reveal those wooden flanges to still be in fine condition,
although--if in original condition--their screws are frequently loose. 
Remember, also, that with a wooden flange, you can tighten its screw with
the action still in place, while with a brass-rail flange, you're going to
have to remove the entire piano action PLUS the player action, too. Loose
flange screws are a common player-maintenance problem, to say nothing (I
guess I just did) of breakage problems associated with aging brass-rail
flange actions.

All of the above argue overwhelmingly in favor of tossing your beauti-
ful (????) tiger oak, white elephant--which is worth EXACTLY what you
paid for it--and replacing it with a high-quality upright in good con-
dition and with an action using standard wooden flanges. Good luck in
your most ambitious player-conversion project.

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net 
 
PS: While there is nothing wrong with asking such questions ,  you must
expect answers to be somewhat slow in coming, because Pianotech is a
piano-technician's list and most of them want NOTHING at all to do with
a player piano--many, if not most, don't want to even tune one!