> > You can make a steel screw look very nice by polishing the head and > holding it over a sprit lamp or gas flame until it turns a dark blue. > > JD Oh, nice thought -new blued screws on brass piano hinges! Never considered that! In the heyday of English watch and clockmaking (and I guess other fine engineering) great attention was paid to bluing steel screws nicely, and those old fusée pocket watches, which were in their time marvels of engineering craftsmanship, look gorgeous with the brass plates and blued screws. (they had tiny chains constucted like bicycle chains but with links about a millimeter long, all handmade by housewives in Lancashire). Seguéing into a related topic: My mother has an old American "gingerbread" clock by E. N. Welsh of Connecticut. Those clocks were cheaply made, but proved extremely durable. The mainspring and striking spring are not contained in barrels and are tough to wrestle with when dismantling and assembling (though there are now nice clamp devices to contain them). Repairing my mother's clock years ago, I found that someone in the past had scribed on the inside face of the brass backplate "Smile and keep going". Sometimes you have to do that when tuning pianos too. Often, in fact! Best regards, David Boyce
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