Ron Nossaman wrote: > > I finished stringing my M&H and chipped it up to pitch today. I used the > 9/32 x 36tpi agraffes from Schaff, tapping the plate to fit. I had ordered > 36 trichords, just in case, and still ended up five short of a usable set, > the balance of which came today. Eighteen of the original 36 trichords were > double helix thread. No problem with the mono, and bichord. I've been > hearing about these double helix suckers for a long time now, and I was > totally mystified as to why Schaff still had them in their inventory. When I > phoned them to get enough single helix to fill out my job, I found out. They > don't know the difference. I talked to the guy for fifteen minutes, a couple > of times, and I couldn't in any way describe what a double helix thread is > (and I tried EVERY way I could think of). He kept saying "It fits the thread > gauge", and kept not hearing my attempts at explanations. He also said that > they send these out all the time to "some of the top rebuilders in the > country" and never had a complaint. Bull! He wants me to send back all the > double helix stuff, presumably so their machinist can check them with the > thread gauge again. As a public service, I spent about an hour this morning > making a gauge of my own, which I intend to send back with the double helix > junk. It's a clam shell deal, hinged on one end, with locator pins to align > everything when it's closed. There's a hole drilled and tapped in from the > side, so you get half a hole in each half of the clamshell when you open it > up (like a bullet or sinker mold). When a single helix shank is laid in the > hole and the gauge is closed, it closes all the way. With a double helix, it > won't. When they get this gauge, they will no longer have any "reasonable" > excuse for having the double helix threads in stock, since they will have a > highly mistake resistant way of determining which is which, and should be > able to see for themselves what works in a single helix threaded hole and > what doesn't. I'm telling you this so you'll know that a gauge exists, and > Schaff will shortly have it in their possession. I also took one of the > double helix agraffe shaped objects, and glued two different colored sewing > threads, one in each, into the thread tracks so they can see how the threads > interleave. It has a certain symmetry, doesn't it? Maybe, just maybe this > will work. > > Now, your mission, should you care to help, is to contact Schaff with > requests for replacement, or at least acknowledgement of the problem, of all > the double helix threaded agraffes you got through the years and were unable > to use. This action, along with the gauge, will hopefully lend credibility > to the project and possibly trigger a search for a Lake Zurich machinist who > knows a thread when he sees one. All of you top rebuilders in this fine > country must surely have hundreds of them laying around by now if they have > been shipped in anywhere near the volume the guy at Schaff indicated. Just > give it a couple of days for the gauge to get there first or you'll just be > yodeling down the well. > > This is all a totally unnecessary pain in the butt, and I'm going to make an > attempt to get something done about it. > > PS: Joel Rappaport says APSCO is (just) now stocking direct replacements for > the old M&H agraffes. That would be 9/32 x 34tpi by my old samples. Only > about two weeks too late for this project, but something to remember for the > next one. > > PPS: Tom Cole, thanks for the offer of your old take-outs, but I have some > of my own now. And no, you still can't throw yours away. Sorry. > > Ron Okay, Ron, back in the vault they go. Very civic-minded of you to go to all this trouble making the gauge and putting thread in the threads to illustrate the problem. I can't remember what I did with those double-helix ASOs but if I find them, I'll ship them off to Schaff next week with my compliments. Tom -- Thomas A. Cole, RPT Santa Cruz, CA mailto:tcole@cruzio.com
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