[pianotech] bushing cloth wear, (was Best Bushing)

[David C. Stanwood]

An easy test for wool content is to put a match to a piece of cloth 
and set it afire then remove the match... if the cloth keeps burning 
after the match is removed then it's not pure wool which would 
account for cloth wearing out fast..  Baldwin had a huge run of 
Chinese pianos not too long ago.  The bushing cloth looked great but 
it was all synthetic.... It really wears out fast!  We have to be 
vigilant for adulteration of wool cloth!   100% wool is the only way 
for pianos!  Viva la Sheep!

D Stanwood

>Hi Ed
>   Join the club
>   We have been greatly frustrated by this but it hasn't been just 
>the recent past. Trix has done fastidious bushing jobs for years. We 
>pre-size the mortises after the old felt comes out to stabilize it & 
>we have on many sets sized them with alcohol and water to make a 
>perfect & tight fit with as little play as we can get by with & yet 
>we find bushings blown out as fast as Indy race car tire. Keys 
>literally clacking against each other. I thought it may just be 
>churches & those players using lots of glissando players, but not so.
>  So we are in the process of switching to using leather in the front 
>mortise of high use applications despite the maintenance issues you 
>site. I have seen leather key busing's 100 years old that fit 
>perfectly & aren't noisy.
>   SO to the collective wisdom here I ask ...what's the answer?
>   After all a key mortise is only going to tolerate so much diddling 
>with before it becomes out of spec & requiring serious & expensive 
>repair or replacement.
>   Dale Erwin
>
>
>From: A440A at aol.com
>
>Subject: [pianotech] bushing cloth wear, (was Best Bushing)
>
>Greetings,
>
><<  We want a very firm, yet resilient
>
>surface against the keypin, not a hard unforgiving one.  We're going for
>
>adhesion here, and not much "penetration" into the cloth is necessary. >>
>
>     I agree. And I wonder what is going on with the cloth, these days.  I
>rebushed 6 grands 18 months ago with the BU series of cloth from PianoTek. I
>took
>care to use as little glue as possible, and all of them required just a
>little easing when first installed, and I left the keys with as 
>little free play
>as
>possible.  They were totally worn out, with keys hitting keys, within the
>year!  Front rails worse than balance.
>      I have never had wear that fast with the older, two color cloth that
>Steinway used to sell.  This new version seems softer and spongier, too.  Half
>of
>these pianos were lubed with Teflon powder, the other with McLube. The pins
>were all polished, too. None of it made any difference, they are all totally
>shot. 
>    These pianos are in a very high use application, but I have been gettting
>4 years out of keybushing with the Steinway and/or Fletcher-Newman "boxcloth"
>supplies I used for many years.  Anybody else have these problems?  I didn't
>iron the felt, but then again, I never have before, and the other cloth
>certainly performed better. 
>Regards,  
>
>
>
>Ed Foote RPT
><http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html>http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
><http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html>www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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