<HTML>Keith (his message quoted below), No flame suit reinforcement needed as far as I'm concerned! I mostly agree w= ith you. I think you are making a reasoned response to the vagaries of indiv= idual damper sets and I was speaking in general. There are also a couple of = items of individual taste. I suppose if the original guide rail is going back in exactly the same spot = after removal for bushing, the plate winds up in exactly the same spot after= removal for finishing, and the original dampers were beautifully spaced, al= igned, and traveled, I might also be tempted by the method you describe. How= ever, this combination of events is rare enough that it doesn't come up too = often for me, so I'd rather just start from scratch with felts aligned to th= e heads, and adjust the side pressure, travel, and timing after felting. In = addition, many damper felts are as wide as the damper blocks, which doesn't = permit too much offset without peeking out one side or another. I am not sorry to say that I agree with you about cosmetics. The piano is to= me a truly beautiful object, and anything which pleases the eye in addition= to the ear adds to the aesthetic experience. When I step on the pedal, I wa= nt the dampers to lift straight out of the strings as one, without any later= al movement of the damper blocks toward or away from each other. I don't kno= w if a little traveling would be discernible in the function of the dampers,= but it might, and it is prettier without. Where the agraffe spacing is unev= en, some kind of compromise must be made. Whether the heads are spaced evenl= y and the felts offset, or the heads spaced directly over the strings, may d= epend upon the degree of unevenness and individual taste. I guess I'm saying= that in most cases, the agraffe spacing isn't enough to bother me, if the t= raveling and timing are really really good. Bob Davis kpiano@goldrush.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT= : 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">   Yeah, I agree, tha= t is what I thought but this is the way I was shown, kinda. I am not sure of= the reason, the person who showed me had for putting the dampers in the pia= no as they glue them, but if I didn't on this Baldwin they would look lousy.= In the tenor section the agraffes are spaced unevenly. The same in the last= two Steinways I did. With the uneven string spacing, the heads don't look l= ike they are right with different spaces between them. Uneven string spacing= is hardly noticeable but damper spacing stands out. On the Mason Hamlin AA,= every third head was tapered to match the heads to the fan of the strings. = Figure out where to center that felt when gluing. This may be controversial bu= t I think looks play more of a part in selling a piano than sound. I don't b= elieve I compromise the damping of the string by off centering the felt to t= he head. 1 mm can make a big difference. My damper jobs are getting high mar= ks for looks and since I complained about regulating behind someone else's g= lue job, the job is mine. It's amazing how many regulation problems you can = solve in the 15 to 30 seconds of adjustment time if your wire bending pliers= are close. I don't tighten the screw, they just sit loose on the string.</F= ONT> I'm thinking I need to p= ay a little more attention to how the wires hang through the tray without th= e felt on and check each head to see that the wire drops straight away from = the head. On this Baldwin, the board was original so the guide rails and tra= y hadn't been messed with. The last two, I had to have the guide rails moved= about a mm. It would be nice to be able to do a quick check of alignment in= the piano. Anybody got a set of clip on felts, all flat?     Okay, my = neck is stretched out and on the block. I hope the steel hood I added to my = flame suit is strong enough. May be I should have drilled some ventilation h= oles in it. </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>