Plugging and redrilling an action rail

[John Delacour]

I'm preparing in my mind a job that needs to be done and which I 
haven't done before.

The problem is with an otherwise quite nice overstrung by Wilhelm 
Spaethe of Gera that will sound good and look good and is therefore 
worth restoring and will fetch a good price.

How the mistake was originally made I can't imagine, but the position 
of the hammer flange screw on the first plain steel note is about 
10mm to the left of where is should be and the error reduces 
gradually until about note 55, when things are just about right.

The original finisher got over this difficulty by first sticking the 
shanks in the butts at a considerable angle and then twisting the 
hammer-head to negate the remaining error.  I have bored out the 
butts and got a good set of Wurzen AA hammers from Abel, and shanks, 
and they will sound very good.  I now have the option of either 
getting a new rail bored correctly from Renner, but almost certainly 
with the wrong flange profile and all sorts of other problems, or 
plugging and redrilling the existing rail where it is unacceptable. 
As to the keys, I'll work out that problem before diving in.

There will be no problem redrilling at the tenor end because the new 
holes will not interfere with the old ones, but for 15 or 20 notes -- 
say 50 holes -- I shall need to be drilling close to or overlapping 
the old plugged hole.  I've thought of leather and epoxy for plugging 
the holes, but I'd be interested to hear other ideas from people who 
have done the job before.  Is there some magic plugging solution that 
will produce a durable result and be as good as it should have been 
when new?

JD