Balance Rail Bushings

[David and Jean Weiss]

Currently I use the Spurlock system but a fellow tech once loaned me his 
Bushmaster.  I did one half of a keyboard with the Spurlock system and the 
other half with the Bushmaster system.  I timed both halves and the 
Bushmaster was slightly faster, about 3 minutes for half a rail.  What I 
didn't like was that I wasn't able to be sure how much glue I had in the key 
mortise.  With the Spurlock system the glue is applied to the cloth in full 
view.  With the Bushmaster, the glue is put into the mortise and its hard to 
see how much glue is in there.  At the end I decided to stick with the 
Spurlock system, because I'm willing to sacrifice perfect uniformity of 
depth for perfect uniformity of glue.  Then again, maybe I didn't have a 
good enough method of applying glue to the mortise.

David Weiss


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: Balance Rail Bushings


>
>> You’re right, the price of the cloth is negligible in terms of the job. 
>> It just bothers me to waste that much.  After I bought the Bushmaster I 
>> got introduced to Spurlock’s system (some years ago now) and I’ve since 
>> acquired all the various sizes from Bill so I’m not so inclined to go 
>> back to the Bushmaster.  I suppose the BM is a bit faster though. David 
>> Love
>
> I like the Bushmaster because of the uniformity of depth of cloth 
> insertion, but I don't like the waste of cloth. I like the both sides at 
> once cauls, for the speed and minimal waste, but don't like the variations 
> in cloth insertion depth my eyes and manual dexterity produce. Never 
> satisfied, I tend to drift back and forth.
> Ron N
>