Cradling was: Epoxy Reinforcing of Action Parts

[Bill Ballard]

>At 2:25 AM -0700 3/29/03, Dave Nereson wrote:
>Bending pins to center the jack in the rep. lever hole (other 
>alternatives are  to install a new jack and hope it's straight, or 
>plug the center pin hole with ??? and re-drill it, which I've never 
>tried.  Or put in a whole new wippen).  Yes, center pin.  By 
>vertical, I think he means centered in the window, as opposed to the 
>jack rubbing on the wippen because of a jack center pin hole drilled 
>crooked (or jack warpage, or sloppy bushing).

Thanks, Dave, for a great job of answering Terry's questions. You 
were right on the mark. (Including the humor about the air nailer. It 
was a pre-emptive joke. I figured somebody would suggest I was 
tapping the tops of the jacks too hard, so I tossed in a wisecrack 
about  the air nailer alot of us are stringing with now.)

When you rap the top of the jack (firmly supporting the body of the 
rep underneath the jack's pinning), the top nudges over because that 
rap has actually bent the jack's CP. The beech of these parts is so 
brittle that, the normally minor force required to bend the pin 
shears the jack instead of pending the pin. To center the jack in the 
rep lever's window, the jack pin still needs a slight bend. In this 
case I'll have to bend the pin before pinning the parts together.

I didn't have a whole lot of time Thursday evening to perfect this 
trick of bending the pin outside of the parts, something I heard from 
Bill Garlick. But I was inserting the pin into the parts so there was 
equal amounts extending from each side. I then nipped a mm. off the 
flat end with the flush cutters, for a reference line (vertical). 
With a tiny pair of needle-nose, I put a modest bend in the pin 
(similar to what you'd find if you pulled the pin out of a cradled 
jack and asked it to roll on a flat surface) at a distance from that 
nipped end equal to the width of the bushed wood which the jack will 
slip  in between. I next inserted the pin until the the nipped end 
was flush to the wood. Now it is possible by rotating the pin (and 
its bend just outside the bushing) to lean the jack to centered.

Too big a bend, and you have a badly binding pin, off-centered to its 
bushing. Thursday evening, I was making my bends "in the beech", and 
it was hard to control to get the required amount of bending without 
binding. I think I'll try doing the pin bending with the pin in the 
jaws of a machinist vice. There's probably not more than a dozen 
which require bending.

What this means for the durability of the parts under normal playing 
circumstances, I don't know.

At 2:25 AM -0700 3/29/03, Dave Nereson wrote:
>I would go for all new jacks.

Schaff is the only catalog selling jacks separately. The reps and 
jacks are a good match for the Tokiwa universal reps with a tall 
heel. I asked somebody at Schaff to  send me three of the "Chickering 
jacks" if they at all matched the shape of the jacks on the Tokiwa 
reps, and they didn't. I've run out the the old Steinway jacks which 
pulled me through the first six I fractured trying to cradle. (You 
undo the mortise&tenon joint with vinegar, scrape the old glue out of 
the joint, with a razor blade put a 14º bevel in the front surface of 
the fly (vertical) where the tender butts against it, and reglue. The 
only modification is that the angle between the fly and tender goes 
from 90º to 104º.)

It's a little late in the game for new jacks (even if they were 
available). I'd go for an entire set of new reps. But the proposal 
was 18 months ago, and it took the church 12 months to get the grant 
approved. The church may have to scrape together the money for new 
reps some year, but not this one.

At 2:25 AM -0700 3/29/03, Dave Nereson wrote:
>  Beech is pretty darn dense stuff. You will not be able to 
>"impregnate" beech with epoxy.

It may have been dense 100 years ago, but now it's down around the 
toughness of cherry. Oh, the things you add to the list of stuff to 
watch for, which you wish was already on that list!

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"May you work on interesting pianos."
     ...........Ancient Chinese Proverb
+++++++++++++++++++++