[pianotech] Plastic Flange Replacement

[Dean May]

use your digital calipers to measure the length of the damper heads and you
should be able to get them back in order. I suspect you will still need to
change the felts, they are not going to mate to the strings exactly. 

Dean
Dean W May                (812) 235-5272 voice and text 
PianoRebuilders.com    (888) DEAN-MAY        
Terre Haute IN 47802

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Terry Farrell
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 3:09 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Plastic Flange Replacement

I have a client with a 1950's Estey console with plastic flanges on the
damper levers that are crumbling to pieces. No plastic flanges anywhere else
on piano. The piano is in good to even very good condition for its age -
regulation is even pretty good. Client want to fix the piano if the cost is
not too high.

I've run across crumbling plastic flanges numerous times in the past, but
the client has always chosen to junk the piano rather than do the repair.
However, in this case with the piano being in good shape otherwise, I think
choosing to do the repair is reasonable. This would be my first plastic
flange replacement job.

Looking for advice. In this particular case, most of the dampers have fallen
to the bottom of the piano. There will be no definitive way to know which
damper belongs to exactly which note. The damper felt is in good condtion -
the few dampers that work quiet the strings nicely and do not buzz.

I suspect that after new flanges are installed on the levers and the lever
assemblies installed on the rail, there will be a pretty fair bit of wire
bending to be done because of the new flanges and levers being in new
positions. I am further thinking that even though the damper felt is still
"good", it is also 60 + years old and only if one is very lucky will any of
the dampers dampen the strings very well. So I'm thinking that some wire
bending (much less than if the old damper felt were to be used) and new
damper felt is in order.

Or am I missing some quick & efficient way to use the original damper felt
successfully and not spend a day bending damper wires?

Thanks!!!

Terry Farrell

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.2897 / Virus Database: 2639/6074 - Release Date: 02/01/13
Internal Virus Database is out of date.