<html> Avery and List, The word plastic is correct, Avery.  Most people don't stop to think that there are a huge variety of plastics, some good and some bad.  ABS is good, at least in this application.  You might dig out your PTJournal from July 1999 (or was it 2000?) for my article on plastics. The noise you are hearing is from the knuckle skin, and will happen with any kind of jack material.  The "escain" material on the knuckle is known to be very quiet when the key is released, but it has a tendency to squeak on letoff sometimes.  Strangely enough, human skin oil seems to make the squeak worse, so rubbing one's finger on the parts is not a good thing. Bill Spurlock's wonderful teflon powder is the ticket for eliminating the noise.  Brush the knuckles with a brass wire brush and apply the powder with a piece of felt or a brush.  Lisa Weller taught me a nifty trick for applying powder - glue a strip of key bushing around an upright hammer shank (wrap it around the circumference) at one end, and use that to apply the teflon powder.  You can keep it in a baggie along with your bottle of teflon powder. I have treated many heavily played actions with the noise not returning.  They might have to be re-treated every 5 years or so, but I haven't really found how much time passes before the noise returns, if at all.  If the noise were really stubborn, I'd suspect some kind of contaminant is on the knuckles. By the way, the repetition lever skins can also make a little noise, and the teflon powder works there as well. Tight action centers should be reamed and repinned - you did absolutely the right thing in my opinion.  I'm a firm believer that this is the best way to treat a tight center, no matter what the action part is made from.  Protek won't hurt the ABS, but using a lubricant doesn't really solve the problem - it just makes it slippery for a time. In some situations an alcohol / water application will loosen a tight center, but if the pin has a burr on it that is snagging the bushing, the problem will come back. Usually you can replace the pin with the same size after a quick burnishing.  The ABS material is quite compressible, and very resilient. Don Mannino RPT dmannino@kawaius.com At 06:10 PM 4/10/2002 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>List, Just wondering. Do any of you have any experience with the newest Kawai RX-2's? My basic question is the "plastic" (I know it isn't, really) wippens and jacks. We have 9 of them on our lease program and the jack seems to be kind of noisy rubbing against the knuckles during let-off. It's not really all that noticeable with normal playing but when doing regulating type of things, it's very noticeable! One other thing. I had a very tight jack flange and was wondering if there's any way to lube those without having to re-pin (which I did, to make it work)? Not really complaining, just looking for some information. Thanks. Avery University of Houston </blockquote></html>