action brackets -- ditto

[Mark Ultsch]

What a coincidence!  I just broke an Everett bracket today trying to get it
in the cradle.  It broke --quite easily I might add -- right at the ear that
provides the stop for the hammer rail.  For brevity, I'll not talk about how
I felt about that.

I noticed some things:  it is a die casting, which are almost exclusively
zinc-, aluminum- magnesium- and copper-base alloys.  It's not too strong in
bending thin sections.

A second observation is that in the middle of this T-section part that broke
is a big (larger than .011 Diameter.  Some methods of die casting have
problems of porosity in the cast part to the degree that it is accepted and
considered in the design of the part.  I wonder how much  porosity
contributed to the fracture in this case.

I wonder if you have a similar problem with porosity.  It's certainly too
late to have something like that covered under a warantee., isn't it?

Mr. ACE the helpful hardware man recommended JB WELD Epoxy, too.  I hope it
works!

I hope I haven't been too detailed (and boring)  here.  It's comes from 18
years as an engineer.  I hope to recover from that soon.

Mark Ultsch
Soon-to-be Associate Member
Southern  WI




----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank/Anne/Emily Cahill" <fcahill@erols.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: action brackets


| Keven,
|
| I took my Everett bracket to a welder today. He said it'a aluminum and
can't be
| repaired. It's a castng and he called it pot metal.
|
| A freind of mine, Sam Powell RPT, says he has fixed these things with JB
weld.
| He reinforces the bracket with brass stock. He suggested I wait until
everything
| dries and then drill for bolts, although he didn't use bolts.
|
| So I guess this is my next step.
|
| Frank Cahill
| Assoc. Member
| Northern VA
|
|
|
| "Kevin E. Ramsey" wrote:
|
| >     Regarding this posting and the one from Phil Romano; I too came upon
a
| > broken action bracket, but on a Yamaha U1. Since it was the one on the
end,
| > I was able to make a repair without even removing the bracket from the
| > rails. What I did was to go to the hardware store and get a couple of
pieces
| > of spacer metal ( 3/4" by 2", with two holes each, probably used for
| > screwing two pieces of wood together, I don't know what you'd call them,
| > obviously). I also bought a tungsten carbide drill bit and two bolts,
and a
| > few washers.
| >     I repositioned the bracket pieces and marked them with a felt tip
pen.
| > Then I drilled them for the bolts. I then mixed up some JB weld,
applying it
| > to both parts, and clamped the whole thing together tightly. I then laid
the
| > action down on a flat bench to get the angle exactly the same as the
other
| > brackets, and let it set overnight. Put it back in the piano, and
everything
| > worked just great, no regulation needed, just what I was going to do to
it
| > anyway, before I started on this job.
| >     I was doing this for one of the salesmen whom I work with who had
just
| > bought this piano, used, so I was reshaping hammers, voicing, and
regulating
| > it anyway. But I didn't notice the break in the action bracket until I
put
| > it in the cradle. I'll be looking for this sort of thing in the future,
| > though.
| >
| > Kevin E. Ramsey
| > ramsey@extremezone.com
| > ----- Original Message -----
| > From: "Frank/Anne/Emily Cahill" <fcahill@erols.com>
| > To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
| > Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 4:56 AM
| > Subject: action brackets
| >
| > > I am working on an Everett console.
| > >
| > > I have a broken action bracket...clean break.
| > >
| > > Can this be repaired?
| > >
| > > Does anyone have an old bracket for sale? (The bracket is 8 3/8"
tall.)
| > >
| > > Frank Cahill Associate Member
| > > Northern VA