<html> At 05:15 PM 12/5/01 -0600, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Hi John,                Perhaps I should have made myself clear in my order of doing things. 1. Clean the agraffes. 2. Spray them with a mist coat of lacquer. 3. Ream them.  ( best of both worlds,  protective coat and virgin brass in the holes.) I also carefully ream new agraffes, many of the new ones have little machine burrs than can be noisy. I also spray them.   I have encountered no problems, and they stay nice and bright for a long time. A lot of agraffe noise and loss of power can be caused, if the strings have not been lifted.  On more than one occasion, I have had calls on noisy strings, and the problem has been solved just by lifting all the strings. Clean correct geometry on all bearing points is essential for clean tone and quality voicing.  An extra few hours of work on the detailing in this area yields big dividends for years to come. Regards Roger At 10:02 PM 12/5/01 +0000, you wrote: >At 6:38 PM +0100 12/5/01, Richard Brekne wrote: > >>This one sound very curious indeed. I have seen plenty plates spray painted as >>you say... I think it looks a bit silly to gold paint the brass... but I have >>never found anything that would hint that this would wreck the sound of an >>instrument. Tho since its you Joe... I will be on the lookout for the next one >>of these I run into and see if I can confirm your claim. >> >>Anyone else have Joes experience ? > >Maybe a long time ago, and I think it's a valid point.  If I'm using >the original agraffes, I clean them in different ways according to >their condition, sometimes removing them and sometimes not.  I then >gild, generally using a spirit based medium to adhere to the older >finishes, and lacquer with an extremely expensive toluene based >"blending clear" car lacquer.  I usually remove the masking from the >agraffes before the last coat of clear.  But I always carefully clean >the agraffe holes with a sharpened hammer shank at the end of the >process. > >Wherever possible I use new agraffes and always on Steinways, because >agraffes are cheap and there's a lot of labour in getting old >agraffes looking really nice.  Besides, the termination is most >important and sensitive and funny things can happen to Steinways if >the agraffes get worn.  If I use new agraffes, I do not lacquer over >them. > >JD > </blockquote> </html>