Agraffes

[Fenton Murray]

Jude,
Regarding the tumbler, I guess it's safe to say you are not keeping them in order, or are you?
Fenton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Absolute Piano 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 9:03 AM
  Subject: Re: Agraffes


  Avery,

  If you're doing enough rebuilding & agraffe restoration, I highly recommend investing in a vibratory tumbler and some Dri-shine III. All small parts now go into the tumbler. Paul's article was excellent and really raises the bar on these important termination points, but the time at the buffing wheel imitating his process was killing my budget. Steinway agraffes are readily available and buying new will give you that shining brass but as Paul mentions, there's still work to be done even on the new ones. Most other manufactures will require restoring the original agraffes. I find that there is about 30 degrees of exceptable play to line the agraffes up. We draw fishing line through the center of the unison at the bridge to use as a perpendicular reference for the agraffe placement. Don't go nuts with shims and be prepare to remove some material (Pianotek carries a tool for this). It's nice to see more people going a bit further than spray bombing the agraffes. :)

  Jude Reveley, RPT
  Absolute Piano Restoration



  ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Joseph Garrett 
    To: pianotech 
    Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 12:28 AM
    Subject: Re: Agraffes



    Avery asked: "For my information. If one has to go to that much trouble, wouldn't it 
    much easier/better to just replace them with new? Except maybe in antique
    type of instrument? Just wondering why one would take that much time."

    Avery,
    If I'm not mistaken, that was covered in Paul's article. Short version is: New agraffes aren't any better in some cases. They still require a lot of labor to get them right. Redoing the olde ones is my choice.<G> (I hate trial and error fitting of agraffes!grrrr)
    Regards,

    Joe Garrett, R.P.T. (Oregon)
    Captain, Tool Police
    Squares R I


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