1939 Steinway wippens

[John Delacour]

At 08:58 -0500 9/11/07, Erwinspiano at aol.com wrote:

>   HI JD
>  ÊMay I slightly remonstrate?
>   ÊOn American Steinway parts with the green scum syndrome, 
>replacing the bushing & the pin will only result in a waste of time. 
>The culprit is in the wood. Having done this on my own piano years 
>ago I first removed all the bushings & soaked the partsÊin 
>perchorlethylene as an effort to remove or dislodge the chemical 
>culprit from the wood itself,Ê& then I rebushed & pinned.  A year 
>laterÊgreen slim & friction Êwas back with a vengence.
>   It's like disturbing it just made it angry. Fortunately all that 
>expensive white wood you refer to on new wippensÊcomes with new 
>bushings and pinning making it worth while.grin

I must bow to your greater experience.  By chance I have just been 
sent a set of  shanks and hammers from an old New York Steinway S. 
Having received the new flanged shanks today from Renner I matched 
them up to the old ones to prepare for the job and realised that 
there was some verdigris on all the patterns I have been sent.  I 
don't know how long the piano has been in England.  It is very rare 
to see this in European pianos.  Do you think it has to do with the 
maple flanges and some chemical in the wood that causes the action? 
I can't think of any European piano that has used maple flanges. 
Most of them use hornbeam and Herrburger and a few others used 
service wood (sorbus domestica) for the flanges, even though 
Herrburger used maple for the other parts in some actions.

JD

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