>At 02:46 PM 8/10/2002 -0400, you wrote: OK, I'm still working on the Stieff upright. Tom, I replaced one of these last year. You could try filling with epoxy and redrilling. I would recommend MarineTex epoxy for that, I've rebuilt bridge surfaces with it and it has lasted. But on the capo which I replaced, I used Delignit. The pins had drifted so far and the apron was broken loose so there really was no using it for reference. I cut the pin block material to the desired dimensions and indexed it to the area with bridge pins and scribed a pin line. Fortunately the hammers were still secure and had not moved so I pulled a thread from the hitch pins indexing off the string cuts (dampers raised), placing the mark on the right side of the thread where it crossed the capo to account for side bearing offset. I did that for every string. That produced a fairly good pattern but I took it a step further. I measured the distance between the first and last single string and divided by 'spaces' and set a divider to space them evenly. I did the same with the bichords, first dividing out the left string and then determining the average width of the unisons and then marked the right string off each 'left' mark. With the capo's pin line engine divided, I drilled the holes on the drill press but did not go completely through. This prevented the epoxy from oozing up into the holes when I glued it to the piano and gave me a good pilot hole for completing the process in the piano. (I had already filled the old holes with epoxy and leveled the surface). I made the appropriate bevels, stained & finished. The repair looked factory perfect and the hammers and dampers aligned perfectly. Beginner's luck I guess. I wasn't that hard to do, just took a little careful consideration and planning. Regards, Jon Page, piano technician Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass. mailto:jonpage@attbi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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