Bruce
I just walked in from my shop where I am doing exactly the same thing. (I just did the bass section, and will do the rest on Thursday). As Norman just said, there are articles in the archives, and there have also been several auricles in the Journal about this, which all tell you to replace just the silk cord. The reason for this is because each flange was traveled at the factory, and when you replace just the silk cord, you don't have to spend any time traveling and spacing the hammers.
Well, for someone who has done about 2 dozen of these jobs in the past 5 years, I have found that replacing the silk cords is a much BIGGER hassle than replacing the flanges. I tried replacing the silk cord method once, and it took me 6 hours of painstaking work. I can replace a set of flanges in about 3 hours, and then spend less than an hour travelings a few hammers here and there.
You shouldn't have to remove the jupons to get the jacks out of the way. It's a little tricky, but it's not too difficult to push the jack to one side. Just make sure to turn the flange screw to the left first, so as not to cross thread the machine screw into the action rail.
You might also was to consider replacing all the bridle straps at the same time as replacing the flanges.
Good luck
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Willem "Wim" Blees, RPT
Mililani, HI 96789
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-26-2013 20:39
From: Bruce MacLeod
Subject: yamaha upright flanges/cords
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Bruce MacLeod
Middletown CT
860-346-8193
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I am replacing an entire set of flanges on a Yamaha M-series console, since over half of the cords are broken already. Seems a daunting task. Are there any shortcuts? I wonder, for instance, whether removing all of the wippens would save time since it would make replacement of the hammer assembly a lot easier. I have done five or six of these at a time, but never a complete set.
Thanks in advance.