Action Rail Screws

[John Delacour]

At 14:12 -0600 22/2/08, William R. Monroe wrote:

>You should always put the SAME screw back into the SAME hole in an action
>frame, e.g.
>
>I've heard this a number of times, a couple times very recently, and I'm
>wondering if anyone can offer a real reason that it is true.

While I concur with Ron Nossaman when it comes to certain Steinways, 
generally speaking it makes no difference, except that I always stay 
awake when I'm taking out screws in case there's a rogue in there, 
especially if the piano has been touched before.  In Europe in the 
old days I think most screws came from GKN and the quality and 
uniformity were excellent.

One certain exception is the English Herrburger Brooks action fitted 
to a lot of cheap and mid-range uprights.  I'm glad to say it's so 
long since I touched one of these that I've forgotten the detail, but 
one or two of the hammer (I think) screws are always much shorter 
than the rest.  If you regulate the dampers and then screw on the 
hammers without respecting these short screws, you will end up 
wondering what happened because (a true masterpiece of design!) the 
long screw has penetrated the rail and pushed out the hinge for the 
damper lift rod, completely screwing up your regulation.  This is a 
lesson all English apprentices learn pretty early in their career.

JD