<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Marshall, sometimes it's possible to just lean the action forward enough to get at the butt plates. Especially if you're doing it for the first time, you may have an easier time of it if you remove two damper levers next to the broken butt plate, so you can have access. A bright light helps, too. A customer just gave me a nifty LED maglite. It's SOOOOO bright! I saw things with it (when fixing butt plates on a Farrand ex-player recently) better than I've seen in years. There's a little tool to suspend a butt plate in position while you turn the screw to hold it in. Schaff will have it. Sometimes you need to bend the little end of it a bit to get it to hold the butt plate securely. Take the hammer out first (undo the bridle tape), after you've taken out the cracked or broken plate suspend the new butt plate down where it goes ... Oh, and you should move the hammer spring to a neighboring note till you're all finished, then put it back in its groove. Start the screw from behind into the new plate, then stop turning before the screw gets tight. You have to leave it loose enough for the hammer's center pin to slide in. Remove the holder. Work to keep the new butt plate upright. Then put the hammer back in. You'll be able to slide it along between the butt plate and the tab of the long rail, and you'll feel it find the groove. Then you finish tightening the little screw from behind. If everything is working right, you then put back in the two damper levers you removed earlier.   It can be a fuss, but there are many of these pianos out there. Repair clips for the broken tabs are even more of a fuss. And for anything made by Kimball, the butt plates aren't threaded, the tabs are. You need special Kimball butt plates, and Kimball repair clips. If you need to repair the broken tabs with repair clips, you'll also need the slightly longer screws, but they will be provided with the repair clips. It can be a pain. If you drop the old broken butt plate (OR the new one) you can't pick them up with a magnet, because they are brass. If the tab breaks off, you have to file it down just the right amount for the repair clip to fit in. On the other hand, most pianos with a brass rail use standard butt plates, and work perfectly well when the bad ones have been replaced. And then they find a few more for you to fix later. They are usually big beautiful uprights, and some still sound very good. Susan Marshall Gisondi wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:BLU167-W30EF2667A051CA8898284EB9030@phx.gbl" type="cite"> <style></style> <div dir="ltr">Hi Dave, Thank you for all of the info.  This piano is an old Lester upright, so tall you'd have to work on it standing up.  The best way I can describe it is by what I'm feeling.  The reason I'm not sure if I access these screws from the back is due to the fact that when I put my finger on the brass rain at c88 where I can wedge my finger in from the side of the action bracket, I feel this screw that feels almost flush with the rail maybe a little recessed.  Now on the area where the hammer is not only loose but just literally sitting there non functioning, I feel this little metal thing protruding out almost feels like the threaded end of a screw, but I cannot feel a head on it.  This leads me to a couple of questions.  How do I know if the plate is missing?  I hear and feel the center pin click when I put in place. So does that mean the plate is present?  do you remove the action in order to access this or do like some might do and just tilt it outward toward you in order to access the screw.  Just in case anyone reading might wonder, I have had some exposure to this at the school. I just have trouble remembering which way the action was facing when we worked on this since it was already out of the piano.  I mentinoed this because someone e-mailed Don at the school and asked if I was trained because of some trouble I was having with another repair, but I cannot recall which one it was.    While I'm on this topic of remembering tasks, is this normal to neeed a refresher on tasks/repairs once in a whie?  I also have the Reblitz book.  I'm also curious as to how you guys know the part numbers off the top of you rhead like that amazing.  Oh just order screwdriver # .... amazing!  You guys are a great help.    So to ease any confusion, this is definitly not a flange screw situation.  It is a hammer but plate arangement. I've never seen this on an old upright before.  We had an old upright at the school with a weird hammer spring rail that used cord loops or some sort of arrangement. I didn t work on this one, but I recall it might have been from an old Bell brand piano.    Well thanks everyone!! I sure appreciate you guys Marshall Marshall Gisondi MARSHALL'S PIANO SERVICE 215-510-9400 <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.phillytuner.com" target="_blank">http://www.phillytuner.com</a> </div> </blockquote> </body> </html>