Flange Bushing Aging

[jolly roger]

Hi Terry,
             A lot of compression has taken place.  It's less frustrating
to just change all the flanges if you have a lot to do.  One wee drop of CA
in the birds eye hole will save you from over pinning the new flanges.
That 100yr old felt is toast for a major reconditioning.
roger


At 06:44 AM 11/1/01 -0500, you wrote:
>What happens to flange bushings as they age - let's say for 125 years. I
>have not seen this subject addressed previously. Does the felt harden
>commonly? The reason I ask is that I have had poor results repinning some
>flanges from a couple 100-year old pianos I have been doing some action work
>on recently. It seems that with a newer flange I can ream it with the
>straight reamer, insert pin, and fairly easily get the desired fit - there
>is a bit of cushion/resilience in the bushing, and a small "window of good
>fit". With the old bushings/flanges it seems there is no forgiveness - ream
>it out - check fit - still too tight - ream the teeny tiniest little bit -
>check fit - too loose. The bushing material even feels different during
>reaming - more firm. Is this just my imagination, or does bushing felt get
>hard with age and make for less forgiving pin fitting? Can I assume this is
>a reason to re-bush (perhaps we should just re-flange and steer clear of
>politics!)?
>
>Terry Farrell
>