Billings flanges

[Clyde Hollinger]

Tom,

I'll start by reiterating what I believe you said.  First you checked if the
screw holding the brass flange to the rail was loose.  It was not.  After
removing the wobbly part you found the pin tight in the Billings flange but loose
in the bird's eyes.  Am I right so far?

(By the way, you can tell if the piano has Billings flanges without removing the
action.  Just look carefully with a good flashlight.  I wouldn't remove the
action at all to do the repairs you are talking about, if it only involves
several notes.)

I think buying other Billings brass flanges will do you no good, since "one size
fits all" and the pin is tight in the brass flange but loose in the brass rail
butt.  So what you need is a tighter fit of the pin inside the felt-bushed hole.
There are several ways to accomplish this.  As Joe Goss wrote, by spreading the
flange a little you can get a larger center pin in there, but I should warn you
that they can break; that happened to me once, I think.

Another way is to rebush the bird's eyes with new felt, not too hard if you know
how to do it.  A third way would be to install a new brass rail butt that comes
complete with the brass flange (Schaff page 100 part 509X).  Then you have to
move the hammer and shank over to the new part and regulate everything properly.

I hope that helps.

Regards,
Clyde Hollinger

Tvak@AOL.COM wrote:

> I recently tuned a Kimball console, dating back to the 40's, and found
> several wobbly hammers.  So I tried to tighten the hammer butt flanges
> without removing the action, but it didn't help.  Then I took out the action
> and found brass hammer butt flanges.  (Billings flanges)  I tried to re-pin
> one, but although the size of pin in the flange was too loose, resulting in
> side play, the next size up would not fit into the flange at all!   I'm
> planning on going to Shaff, buying some new flanges and replacing the old
> ones, but is there a fix of the situation without replacing the flange?  (and
> thereby saving me a trip to Schaff!)  And I wonder: what causes a brass
> flange to loosen up like that?
>
> Tom Sivak
> Associate Member Chicago Chapter PTG