Stieff Rebuild - Keyframe work

Keyframe Work

Earlier, I completed woodwork and cleanup on the keyframe. This week, I installed new WNG keypins. I installed 88 keypins for the center rail, but just the 52 pins for the whites on the front rail. This will allow me to cut through the area of the sharps key pins when resurfacing the sides of the white keys. The front rail WNG pins are made with a small diameter insertion shaft which apparently matches current European standards, but requires bushing for classic American applications. This required re-boring the front rail holes for nylon bushings, and subsequently boring the nylon bushings for the insertion of the key pin. That obviously was quite a bit of extra work, but produced a really nice result.

Inserting nylon bushings in front rail with drill press arbor

The front rail got new key bushings. They were bushing close to tolerance, as that will be important when resurfacing the key sides.

Front rail bushed uniformly using Spurlock key bushing cauls

Along the way,some of the fragile sharp key mortises were replaced with new wood inserts and mortised