Key bushing question

Thomas D. Seay, III t.seay@mail.utexas.edu
Wed Jul 3 09:15 MDT 2002


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Dear Colleagues,

I would like to take a minute of your time to ask if any of you have 
experienced the following situation regarding worn key bushings.

The keys are carefully rebushed in the customary way, using hot hide 
glue, Renner bushing cloth, Spurlock sizing and key bushing cauls, 
and are carefully fitted to the keyboard. I emphasize the word 
careful so as to forstall questions of quality control during the 
bushing process.
Any nicked or damaged pins are replaced with new ones.
The keyframe pins are cleaned, polished and lubed with McLube and the 
bushings are lubricated with ProLube.
After 6 months to a year, the key bushings, usually but not always 
front bushings, have deteriorated to the point of having excessive 
side to side motion. This usually occurs in the middle of the 
keyboard and is found on both naturals and sharps.
Upon examining the front guide pins, we discover a hard red substance 
on one side or the other, usually on the left (bass) side of the pin, 
which acts like sandpaper and gradually wears away the key bushing 
cloth.  I assume that this could be a combination of glue and bushing 
cloth dust.
This only occurs on about a half-dozen or so Steinways (circa 1978) 
with Pratt-Reed keyboards.
I have replaced front key pins in a few instances and the problem 
usually returns.
We use the same careful procedure on each piano keyboard we rebush, 
but it always seems to be the same pianos which end up with the loose 
bushings.

I have one piano, a Steinway model L, on which I have to rebush keys 
every spring because of this problem. It gets a tremendous amount of 
hard playing every day, but so do all of the other pianos here, most 
of which don't have this problem.

Any ideas about what might be going on?

Many thanks.

Tom Seay

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Tom Seay
Piano Tech Office
School of Music
The University of Texas at Austin
(512) 232-2072
mailto:t.seay@mail.utexas.edu


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