Yamaha balance rail rebushing question

[Garret Traylor]

John,
Yet again, anticipation of your expert photography depicting your technique
and tools would be greatly appreciated (when you have time) by this reader.
Thanks for your posts.
Kindest Regards,
Garret 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of John Delacour
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 5:40 PM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: yamaha balance rail rebushing question

At 17:16 -0400 7/9/08, Mike Morvan wrote:

>There is no advantage of any kind to bushing that area of the button 
>when rebushing.. When buttons are made, they are bushed from the 
>underside with cauls then flipped over and glued to the top of the 
>keysticks. That is the only reason the little piece of cloth is 
>there.

I'd say that if there were no advantage, key-makers generally would 
have halved the amount of cloth they used by not making the chases 
like that.  In fact very few key-makers in the last 120 years have 
done so.

In pianos that are frequently maintained and regulated there is a 
considerable risk of pushing out the chase bushing when replacing the 
keys on the pins if the bushings are not tucked in.

I always rebush key-chases by feeding the cloth strip through the 
sides and pushing it up with special plugs which are dropped into the 
chase before the cloth is pulled through.  One end of the plug 
protrudes through the balance hole, and when glue has been applied, 
this is pushed up, squeezing the cloth against the wood.  The cloth 
is then slit along the middle and the ends trimmed when the glue is 
set.  This method not only restored the keys as original but is 
probably faster.

JD