Pianotech

  • 1.  Yamaha Console Hammer Butt

    Posted 06-10-2022 12:49
    I'm doing a butt spring cord replacement job on a Yamaha console. I need a couple replacement butts. I have called Yamaha, PianoTek, Schaff and Pacific and none of them have butts for the Yamaha console available (Yamaha has them on back order - 6-8 weeks).

    Soooooo, I'm wondering if I can repair the butts I have. What's wrong with them you may ask. Well, amazingly, I seem to have made the first mistake I've ever made with pianos and managed to insert the flange pin is such a way as to relocate the birdseye hole on one side of the butt. So now the flange sits at quite an angle to the butt, which, of course, when mounted, has the butt and hammer assembly pointing at a rather undesirable angle. If the darn birdseye hole wasn't so darn small, I wouldn't be asking a question and I would simply plug the hole and redrill. But I'm thinking here that the hole is so small - how the heck am I going to cut a 1.5mm - or let's say 2mm - plug? I don't have a plug cutter that small. I could glue in a toothpick or some-such type thing, but I'm concerned with the teeny-tiny drill bit's ability to follow a straight path. If I just tried to fill the hole with glue - CA, epoxy, whatever - I'd worry more about a drill bit just following the crooked hole and not boring through straight.

    Any ideas?

    OR - Anyone have a couple Yamaha console butts they can spare? Preferably without butt plates (although, would it really matter?).

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    Terry Farrell
    Farrell Piano Service, Inc.
    Brandon, Florida
    terry@farrellpiano.com
    813-684-3505
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  • 2.  RE: Yamaha Console Hammer Butt

    Posted 06-10-2022 13:20
    Found an answer to my question regarding whether butt plates or no butt plates mattered - NO! I was just pulling the last of the butts off the action rail and noticed that someone (apparently) had replaced one of the non-plate butts with a butt with a plate. The overall dimensions of the butt and flange are exactly the same. So I could use either a console butt with a plate or without.

    Thanks!!!

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    Terry Farrell
    Farrell Piano Service, Inc.
    Brandon, Florida
    terry@farrellpiano.com
    813-684-3505
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Yamaha Console Hammer Butt

    Posted 06-10-2022 14:06
    Good way to make thin hardwood dowels: drill hole in the flat piece of metal, for example cabinet scraper and “drill” pointed wooden stick through it in drill press.

    Alexander Brusilovsky


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  • 4.  RE: Yamaha Console Hammer Butt

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 06-11-2022 12:16
    What a great idea!
    Terry,
    I’m not sure if this would help you, I recently was repairing the damper system on. Kawai KG-1C, and found one side of one of one of the tray flange tongue bird’s eyes wallowed out. I used buckskin to fill the wallow (like you might for a stripped screw,) adding plenty of glue and then the appropriate center pin, and lightly clamped the bird’s eye with visegrips until the glue set. I was able to ream for the a nice tight fit and trim the excess buckskin in the shape of the bird’s eye. Of course, the tray has 4 flanges so it’s not bearing all the weight of the tray, but it worked rather well.
    Trying to attach photo.


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