<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Find some fairly hard buckskin. Cut it into tiny strips, with a little point on the ends. Test one in a hole, and cut it off the blunt end so it is the right length to fill the hole but not protrude. Get it back out, soak it with white glue, put it back in, replace the screw while the white glue is still wet, making sure you aren't just pushing the leather ahead of the screw. On those little long hinge holes I sometimes put the tip of the Elmer's bottle into the hole and give it a little squeeze, once the leather is already in. Wipe away any glue which oozes out after you've tightened the screw. It doesn't have to be totally tight when you screw it in, just so long as it resists overturning at least a little bit -- it will firm up more later after the glue sets. White glue never seizes screws, like CA glue sometimes does. The white glue stops the splintering in the hole, so the screw threads don't turn the wood to sawdust anymore. The leather is soft when wet and conforms to the screw threads. Then it gets hard when it dries, essentially making new screw threads in the hole. I use this tactic on all stripped screw holes, from tiny slivers of leather for the long hinge all the way to big thick strips of shoe leather for lyre holes. I never put in longer or fatter screws. The trouble isn't that the screws are too small, it is that the holes have gotten too big. Also, you want all screws to match each other if possible. And if you can get the old ones to work, you don't need to supply new ones. I got this idea from Jeff Hickey, who talked on pianotech about repairing stripped Steinway rail screw holes. Any mistakes are mine, not his ... but this idea has worked out very well for me. Susan Kline <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:paulmulik@yahoo.com">paulmulik@yahoo.com</a> wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:504059727-1356009415-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-549263742-@b3.c20.bise6.blackberry" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">A school that I tune for has a Kawai grand, and about a third of the little screws from the long hinge (connecting the front lid to the main lid) have fallen out. I've told them repeatedly that if they need to move the piano around the room they must not push on the lid (I even left a note to the lid warning against it), and of course they have ignored this advice. In the past I tried replacing them with slightly longer screws but those have fallen out too. Obviously I need to fill the holes with something, I guess using a syringe, but what? Epoxy? Wood filler? Thick CA? Thanks, Paul Mulik Sent from my U.S. Cellular BlackBerry® smartphone</pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>