(I thought I'd make this a different topic, as it was somewhat of a mismatch with the soundboard discussion.)

Basic gist so far: unused teflon (sorry, Teflon) wippens and shanks/flanges, what to do?

One suggestion was to install new bushing cloth. I don't think that would work, as the teflon cylinder has a collar that serves as the bird's eye, and the wood parts aren't milled to have a bird's eye. There's a gap between the two pieces, which is filled by the cylinder's collar.

Thanks!

Why would you have used teflon parts and want to do anything but throw them away? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hi Zeno:
Welcome to the neighborhood!

You can't really use them as replacement parts for a job you are selling. Any use would require full disclosure. It would be hard to charge for them.

I have a number of Steinways that I service where the teflon parts are not a problem. They work fine, until they start to click, and not all of them do. At the very least you could save them as replacement parts for other teflon actions.

Hi Roy, thanks for the welcome!

Why do I have them? My predecessor at the college where I'm the piano technician squirelled away a couple sets of wippens about 30 years ago, I found them at the bottom of a closet.

I definitely wouldn't sell a job using these parts. We have a few pianos with teflon parts, and I sometimes use them as replacements. I've found that the shanks/flanges make more clicking noise than the wippens.

This is a little out of my area of expertise but I did have the situation come up at a tech college I work for. The Teflon® wippens (Steinway uses the term, "repetitions" but nobody else does) are fine but the shanks and flanges need replacement.

I inquired with Steinway about that and the answer was that although mixing the two is not totally incompatible, it's not a very good idea. I think any of the rebuilders on here would have an even stronger negative opinion about that. It would create geometry and touch weight problems.

You are right about it not being possible to rebush Teflon® wippens with cloth. The Teflon® insert serves as its on birdseye, therefore, the wippen itself has none.

To use what you have as an occasional replacement part is the best, I think but it could take 88 years to ever need 88 of them. Since these kinds of institutions always want to cut corners on costs, I don't think it would be out of line to use them on an action of some practice room piano somewhere where a heavy action may be what some people like anyway.

By the way, since the Steinway factory is right near you, it would be easy for you to talk to someone in person about the complications of mixing Teflon® wippens with newer shanks and flanges. If you know what you'll have to do to best make them work and what Steinway itself says are the consequences, you'll be off the hook if the action turns out to play like a truck. I've always known piano students who actually sought out a piano like that with the belief that it made them stronger. It wouldn't be what I would advise but people want what they want.

You could bush the shanks and get new flanges for them.

It's the placement of the knuckle on the shank that's the problem with teflon shanks. Current Steinway production uses the Hamburg dimension of 17 mm from center pin to center of the knuckle core. Teflon shanks are 15.5 mm. Steinway has used 15.5, 16.2 and 17 mm knuckles over the years and the parts have to be carefully matched to get the correct geometry.

I haven't checked yet, but I think that the holes drilled for the teflon bushings are probably much smaller than for wool centers.

If the holes drilled for the bushings are smaller, you can ream them to one side to correct the distance.

Frankly, the distance that matters is the distance from center to the contact point between the knuckle and the jack. This varies according to the placement of the knuckle, the size of the knuckle and the position of the jack at rest. These things will vary from note to note by a fraction of a millimeter just because the tolerances are not that tight. There are rarely dire consequences because these are off by a bit. The biggest problem is with old wippens that have no jack adjustment.