CAUT

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

I too am in the wood plug camp with the correct material and grain orientation.  Have made my own on occasion as well as the PianoTek plugs which are quite handy.  

I thought you might enjoy seeing the remnants of a past project.  The enclose picture is of keys 3,4 and 5 from one of our Steinway Bs #CB 96 which was recently redone stem to stern.  The piano was built in about 1929ish and as you can see in the picture the keys were altered some time ago going from a forward weighting system to the more contemporary "accelerated action" style of weighting.  The keyframe lacked the balance rail bearing commonly associated with the system.  The work appears to be an older job and in querying the West Coast Steinway Institutional rep I was told that there were a number of pianos that could not be sold.  The reasons given were the Great Depression and that the newly developed system of accelerated action was a new thing on the market.  Apparently, according to him, there were a number of pianos returned to the factory for the refit in the hopes they could be sold with the new system.  I have no way of documenting this accurately and is an interesting theory at best.  The piano has a new keyboard now but I have kept these keys for archival purposes.  

They appear to be a combination of dowels and plugs and a variety of materials from Oak to Spruce to Pine.  There is no consideration with respect to the grain orientation and keys 3 and 4 have considerable cracking through the new weights.  As you can see however there is little movement with respect to the dowels and if they have been in there since the 1930s they have held up well.

Mike Reiter

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

Maybe I'm a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure I see the advantage of plugging holes at all unless there is a need to redrill and lead a key close to where the original lead was removed. I reweighted a C7 last year after installing some prehung HSF from Brooks that came out too light: I knocked the front lead out of most of the keys and added more weight further back (sort of the accelerated concept). I did not bother to plug the keys - the holes are not noticeable to a significant degree. I believe the keys are not weakened enough to matter, after all, the leads don't really add strength to the keys, they are just filling a hole and if anything stress the they key when they are swaged. 

I too am in the wood plug camp with the correct material and grain orientation.  Have made my own on occasion as well as the PianoTek plugs which are quite handy.  

I thought you might enjoy seeing the remnants of a past project.  The enclose picture is of keys 3,4 and 5 from one of our Steinway Bs #CB 96 which was recently redone stem to stern.  The piano was built in about 1929ish and as you can see in the picture the keys were altered some time ago going from a forward weighting system to the more contemporary "accelerated action" style of weighting.  The keyframe lacked the balance rail bearing commonly associated with the system.  The work appears to be an older job and in querying the West Coast Steinway Institutional rep I was told that there were a number of pianos that could not be sold.  The reasons given were the Great Depression and that the newly developed system of accelerated action was a new thing on the market.  Apparently, according to him, there were a number of pianos returned to the factory for the refit in the hopes they could be sold with the new system.  I have no way of documenting this accurately and is an interesting theory at best.  The piano has a new keyboard now but I have kept these keys for archival purposes.  

They appear to be a combination of dowels and plugs and a variety of materials from Oak to Spruce to Pine.  There is no consideration with respect to the grain orientation and keys 3 and 4 have considerable cracking through the new weights.  As you can see however there is little movement with respect to the dowels and if they have been in there since the 1930s they have held up well.

Mike Reiter

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

I'd mainly be worried about excessive key flex, especially in the bass. Del had some interesting things to show about this in his class at the last national (although he didn't address key lead holes specifically).  Bass keys flex a _lot_ on a hard blow; in fact in high speed videos we've seen that the key comes pretty close to bottoming out before the hammer starts to move.  Some of that is compression in the knuckle and wippen heel, but the largest part of it comes from key flex.

FWIW I don't know how much un-plugged lead holes would actually increase the flex.  But I think it's something to consider / watch out for.

Maybe I'm a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure I see the advantage of plugging holes at all unless there is a need to redrill and lead a key close to where the original lead was removed. I reweighted a C7 last year after installing some prehung HSF from Brooks that came out too light: I knocked the front lead out of most of the keys and added more weight further back (sort of the accelerated concept). I did not bother to plug the keys - the holes are not noticeable to a significant degree. I believe the keys are not weakened enough to matter, after all, the leads don't really add strength to the keys, they are just filling a hole and if anything stress the they key when they are swaged. 

I too am in the wood plug camp with the correct material and grain orientation.  Have made my own on occasion as well as the PianoTek plugs which are quite handy.  

I thought you might enjoy seeing the remnants of a past project.  The enclose picture is of keys 3,4 and 5 from one of our Steinway Bs #CB 96 which was recently redone stem to stern.  The piano was built in about 1929ish and as you can see in the picture the keys were altered some time ago going from a forward weighting system to the more contemporary "accelerated action" style of weighting.  The keyframe lacked the balance rail bearing commonly associated with the system.  The work appears to be an older job and in querying the West Coast Steinway Institutional rep I was told that there were a number of pianos that could not be sold.  The reasons given were the Great Depression and that the newly developed system of accelerated action was a new thing on the market.  Apparently, according to him, there were a number of pianos returned to the factory for the refit in the hopes they could be sold with the new system.  I have no way of documenting this accurately and is an interesting theory at best.  The piano has a new keyboard now but I have kept these keys for archival purposes.  

They appear to be a combination of dowels and plugs and a variety of materials from Oak to Spruce to Pine.  There is no consideration with respect to the grain orientation and keys 3 and 4 have considerable cracking through the new weights.  As you can see however there is little movement with respect to the dowels and if they have been in there since the 1930s they have held up well.

Mike Reiter

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

I don't think key flex would be an issue at that part of the key, so near to the pianists finger. Keys flex mostly in the middle, thus the importance of the key button and shoe. 

I'd mainly be worried about excessive key flex, especially in the bass. Del had some interesting things to show about this in his class at the last national (although he didn't address key lead holes specifically).  Bass keys flex a _lot_ on a hard blow; in fact in high speed videos we've seen that the key comes pretty close to bottoming out before the hammer starts to move.  Some of that is compression in the knuckle and wippen heel, but the largest part of it comes from key flex.

FWIW I don't know how much un-plugged lead holes would actually increase the flex.  But I think it's something to consider / watch out for.

Maybe I'm a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure I see the advantage of plugging holes at all unless there is a need to redrill and lead a key close to where the original lead was removed. I reweighted a C7 last year after installing some prehung HSF from Brooks that came out too light: I knocked the front lead out of most of the keys and added more weight further back (sort of the accelerated concept). I did not bother to plug the keys - the holes are not noticeable to a significant degree. I believe the keys are not weakened enough to matter, after all, the leads don't really add strength to the keys, they are just filling a hole and if anything stress the they key when they are swaged. 

I too am in the wood plug camp with the correct material and grain orientation.  Have made my own on occasion as well as the PianoTek plugs which are quite handy.  

I thought you might enjoy seeing the remnants of a past project.  The enclose picture is of keys 3,4 and 5 from one of our Steinway Bs #CB 96 which was recently redone stem to stern.  The piano was built in about 1929ish and as you can see in the picture the keys were altered some time ago going from a forward weighting system to the more contemporary "accelerated action" style of weighting.  The keyframe lacked the balance rail bearing commonly associated with the system.  The work appears to be an older job and in querying the West Coast Steinway Institutional rep I was told that there were a number of pianos that could not be sold.  The reasons given were the Great Depression and that the newly developed system of accelerated action was a new thing on the market.  Apparently, according to him, there were a number of pianos returned to the factory for the refit in the hopes they could be sold with the new system.  I have no way of documenting this accurately and is an interesting theory at best.  The piano has a new keyboard now but I have kept these keys for archival purposes.  

They appear to be a combination of dowels and plugs and a variety of materials from Oak to Spruce to Pine.  There is no consideration with respect to the grain orientation and keys 3 and 4 have considerable cracking through the new weights.  As you can see however there is little movement with respect to the dowels and if they have been in there since the 1930s they have held up well.

Mike Reiter

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!

For those following this thread, I had one of our shop hands build a couple hundred spruce plugs, made from the same wood we make keysets out of - kiln dried clear Canadian or Norwegian spruce (side grain to match keys).  These are available on our website at:

 https://www.reyburnpianoworks.com/store

The plugs are just undersize for a 9/16" forstner bit which is the common and convenient size for plugging keys.

-Dean

I don't think key flex would be an issue at that part of the key, so near to the pianists finger. Keys flex mostly in the middle, thus the importance of the key button and shoe. 

I'd mainly be worried about excessive key flex, especially in the bass. Del had some interesting things to show about this in his class at the last national (although he didn't address key lead holes specifically).  Bass keys flex a _lot_ on a hard blow; in fact in high speed videos we've seen that the key comes pretty close to bottoming out before the hammer starts to move.  Some of that is compression in the knuckle and wippen heel, but the largest part of it comes from key flex.

FWIW I don't know how much un-plugged lead holes would actually increase the flex.  But I think it's something to consider / watch out for.

Maybe I'm a bit of a hack, but I'm not sure I see the advantage of plugging holes at all unless there is a need to redrill and lead a key close to where the original lead was removed. I reweighted a C7 last year after installing some prehung HSF from Brooks that came out too light: I knocked the front lead out of most of the keys and added more weight further back (sort of the accelerated concept). I did not bother to plug the keys - the holes are not noticeable to a significant degree. I believe the keys are not weakened enough to matter, after all, the leads don't really add strength to the keys, they are just filling a hole and if anything stress the they key when they are swaged. 

I too am in the wood plug camp with the correct material and grain orientation.  Have made my own on occasion as well as the PianoTek plugs which are quite handy.  

I thought you might enjoy seeing the remnants of a past project.  The enclose picture is of keys 3,4 and 5 from one of our Steinway Bs #CB 96 which was recently redone stem to stern.  The piano was built in about 1929ish and as you can see in the picture the keys were altered some time ago going from a forward weighting system to the more contemporary "accelerated action" style of weighting.  The keyframe lacked the balance rail bearing commonly associated with the system.  The work appears to be an older job and in querying the West Coast Steinway Institutional rep I was told that there were a number of pianos that could not be sold.  The reasons given were the Great Depression and that the newly developed system of accelerated action was a new thing on the market.  Apparently, according to him, there were a number of pianos returned to the factory for the refit in the hopes they could be sold with the new system.  I have no way of documenting this accurately and is an interesting theory at best.  The piano has a new keyboard now but I have kept these keys for archival purposes.  

They appear to be a combination of dowels and plugs and a variety of materials from Oak to Spruce to Pine.  There is no consideration with respect to the grain orientation and keys 3 and 4 have considerable cracking through the new weights.  As you can see however there is little movement with respect to the dowels and if they have been in there since the 1930s they have held up well.

Mike Reiter

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

Hi-

I agree about using proper wood plugs and it really goes pretty fast.  I know in advance with relative confidence exactly which leads need to go and it looks very nice when finished.  I will admit that I was buying the 9/16 popular plugs from Pianotek, which work very well for both the larger Yamaha leads and the 1/2" standard size.  They also sold a long bit for sizing the holes properly.   If anyone knows of a new source for buying a bag of nice plugs I would be interested in that.  For the price, it was worth it to me just buying them ready made.   Some people also like filling capstan holes with epoxy but I use popular dowels for that as well.  

best,

Dennis

Hi Scott,

Since our shop makes keysets, we see lots of attempts at plugging lead holes. In my opinion there's nothing as well matched to keys as a similar or the same wood species plug with grain orientation to match. The same species is best, but spruce and pine are pretty much interchangeable.

During re-leaing, you'll sometimes be drilling part of the plug and real wood will end up a much better job.  It looks better and it doesn't degrade the key's strength and stiffness.

What doesn't work well is maple or birch plugs made from hardware store dowels. The grain is going the wrong way which means they will eventually separate from the keystick and maybe click or certainly cause weakness in the keystick.

Well matched plugs are also very fast to install.  For making plugs, I have a shophand spend a half a day making them in bulk. We make plugs in every size and from many different species to match keyframes and keys.

We make our own key plugs from kiln-dried spruce, from scraps of keyblanks of course.  But we have way more spruce key scrap than we can use. If anyone out there will pay for shipping, I'd be happy to send any PTG member a small box of kiln-dried clear keyset quality spurce for plugs. Plug cutters are readily available and easy to use on a drill press.

Hope that's helpful,

-Dean

Greetings all,

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop to find a good non-wood plug filler for keys with lead removed. I'm judging various materials for strength,

brittleness, ease of use, weight, ability to cleanly re-drill for new lead if necessary, and cost. (This will likely be material for an Journal article. )So far, here are some I've been evaluating:

1. Abatron
2. Durham's Rock Hard Putty
3. DAP Plastic Wood
4. JB Kwikwood
5. P.C. Woody

Any other materials/brands worth considering? I haven't yet tried West System products.

thanks!