[pianotech] bushing cloth wear, (was Best Bushing)

[erwinspiano at aol.com]

Hi Ed
? Join the club
? We have been greatly frustrated by this but it hasn't been just the recent past. Trix has done fastidious bushing jobs for years. We pre-size the mortises after the old felt comes out to stabilize it & we have on many sets sized them with alcohol and water to make a perfect & tight fit with as little play as we can get by with & yet we find bushings blown out as fast as?Indy race car tire. Keys literally clacking against each other. I thought it may just be churches & those players using lots of glissando players, but not so.
?So we are in the process of switching to using leather in the front mortise of high use applications despite the maintenance issues you site. I have seen leather key busing's 100 years old that fit perfectly & aren't noisy. 
? SO to the collective wisdom here I ask ...what's the answer? 
? After all a key mortise is only going to tolerate so much diddling with before it becomes out of spec & requiring serious & expensive repair or replacement.
? Dale Erwin


From: A440A at aol.com

Subject: [pianotech] bushing cloth wear, (was Best Bushing)



Greetings, 

<<  We want a very firm, yet resilient 

surface against the keypin, not a hard unforgiving one.  We're going for 

adhesion here, and not much "penetration" into the cloth is necessary. >>

    I agree. And I wonder what is going on with the cloth, these days.  I 
rebushed 6 grands 18 months ago with the BU series of cloth from PianoTek. I 
took 
care to use as little glue as possible, and all of them required just a 
little easing when first installed, and I left the keys with as little free play 
as 
possible.  They were totally worn out, with keys hitting keys, within the 
year!  Front rails worse than balance. 
     I have never had wear that fast with the older, two color cloth that 
Steinway used to sell.  This new version seems softer and spongier, too.  Half 
of 
these pianos were lubed with Teflon powder, the other with McLube. The pins 
were all polished, too. None of it made any difference, they are all totally 
shot.  
   These pianos are in a very high use application, but I have been gettting 
4 years out of keybushing with the Steinway and/or Fletcher-Newman "boxcloth" 
supplies I used for many years.  Anybody else have these problems?  I didn't 
iron the felt, but then again, I never have before, and the other cloth 
certainly performed better.  
Regards,   



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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