<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dean, you say a design feature.<div>I say a design failure. :-)</div><div>John Ross</div><div>Windsor, Nova Scotia<br><div><div>On 23-01-2012, at 1:49 PM, Dean May wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>It's a design feature...<br><br>Dean<br><br>Dean W May (812) 235-5272 voice and text<br><br><a href="http://PianoRebuilders.com">PianoRebuilders.com</a> (888) DEAN-MAY<br><br>Terre Haute IN 47802<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From: <a href="mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org">pianotech-bounces@ptg.org</a> [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf<br>Of Ron Nossaman<br>Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 12:44 PM<br>To: <a href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</a><br>Subject: Re: [pianotech] broken agraffes<br><br>On 1/23/2012 10:40 AM, Wally Scherer wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">It seems that Steinways are notable for this problem. (WHY?)<br></blockquote><br>The agraffes that break have a flat bottomed shoulder and the stud isn't <br>threaded all the way up to the shoulder. When these were installed, the <br>stud ran out of thread before the shoulder seated, so they just cranked <br>them on down in spite of it. This over stressed the stud. When they did <br>bottom out, the flat bottomed shoulder wasn't crushable like the concave <br>shoulders in the supply house agraffes we get now. So when they cranked <br>them even harder to align them it stressed the stud even more.<br><br>When they eventually break, the stud threads are still jammed into the <br>plate threads, making the broken stud hard to get out.<br><br>That's pretty much it.<br>Ron N<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>