Hi. Can anyone tell me how to use a square to make sure I reglue a jack accurately, that had come off an upright action?

thanks.

I just do it by feel and by eyeball. The important thing is that it is under the butt, and even that can be adjusted by twisting the flange a bit.

The easiest way would be to clean the joint first, apply a good quality glue (resin), re-assemble the jack/flange and just check the jack's position by making sure that the top part of the jack lines up nicely with the checkfelt - that should be spot on assuming that the check hasn't been bent out of line while taking the whippen off the beam.

Johnkie, what type of "resin" would you use for such a repair?

For me, resin could be many things - from the sticky stuff oozing out of the bark of a tree to the stuff boat builders use to make boats...

For these type of repairs, I use fish glue because it is very tacky and has similar properties to hot hide glue (besides having to be heated). I keep this glue handy for a lot of my piano work, from gluing felts, leathers, hammers, veneer etc. I think any good carpenters glue would work for jack flanges, though.

On an old upright action, I use CA glue. No need to remove the action.

1. Align the jack with its neighbors, making sure it's pressed down squarely and firmly.
2. Spray a small mist of accelerator
3. 2 drops of the thinnest CA.

Tunable and playable immediately.

Hi Ann,

Nice to see you around these parts again.

I also eye ball it but make sure the jack is seated ALL THE WAY DOWN on the wippen. That is, the inside bottom of the jack itself. Ask me how I found out the hard way that mine wasn't one time? Better yet, don't ask! Terrible thing to have to undo... Make sure you clean out the old glue too.

Check to make sure it is centered left to right with the back check too as was mentioned and once the wippen is installed again, check again, to make sure it is aligned up with the hammer butt itself because, the back check just might not be straight if someone else has been playing with it.... Personally, I use Tite Bond for that but I don't slop it on. Tite Bond gives me plenty of working time to complete the work right.

If I were you and you have the time, "gently" check the other jacks as long as the action is out. I use a flat angled voicing pliers for that. Whatever is loose, might as well re-glue now or you'll end up taking the action out again at some other point in time...

I prefer to use Epoxy Resin .... as used by carpenters for this type of repair. I know that some dislike using this when working on hammers, as it is very difficult to dismantle the hammer / shank joint without causing danage if there is ever a need to remove the heads again, but for jack flanges it's a permanent solution that never has to be worried about throughout the life of the piano

I use hot or cold hide glue whenever I can. Titebond is also excellent for that application. Epoxy is overkill in my opinion.

You may well be correct Jean ... perhaps Evo stik W is simply the same as titebond ... not in fact an epoxy resin ! I was simply trying to answer a question about what type of resin

Epoxy, as far I know, is a two part mix. Resin and hardener. The more hardener you add, the faster it sets, usually. Also resulting in a less strong bond.

In other words, 5 minute epoxy is not as strong as 24h epoxy.

Titebond looks just like white school glue, but is of much better quality.

There is also carpenter's glue, which has the same viscosity as white glue, but is a light yellow colour.

The there is contact cement, no use with pianos.

Then there is animal glue, both cold and hot, which for pianos is great.

Then there is another glue, the one that piano suppliers sell for felt and plastic keytops. I am not sure what it is called because I have been buying from the same supplier for years, it's called Pianophile glue, the name of my supplier. PVC?

Those are the terms I use, so I understand that I might have misunderstood yours.

Cheers

The Titebond that I have is the yellow aliphatic resin stuff.

Thanks, all of you. I used yellow carpenter's glue, and I just eyeballed it... and got it wrong. Did not seem like there was much old glue to scrape off, but I didn't have my knife with me... cutting corners, and now I'll have to dissolve the glue (vinegar? acetone?) and do it again. It looked fine and I thought I'd jammed the flange down on the wippen, but when I got it back in the piano it was not right.

How long have we been advising 2part epoxies and other glues on piano actions?. Even on an old piano it is not necessarily the last time it will be repaired, particularly if a scruffy repair has been done with too strong a glue that cannot be easily disassembled without risk of further breakage of parts.
For outside repairs simply cold hide glue or fish glue is good for everything except maybe getting a good glue collar on a hammer (I have thought of leaving some out to thicken for on location hammer gluing but never got round to it) and it can easily be dissassembled. It will also go through many freeze-thaw cycles without weakening if you leave your tools in the trunk of your vehicle overnight or fly a lot. Can't be sure with some modern glues.
Upright jacks can be repaired without taking the action out if you carefully use thin bladed parallell pliers or a long pair of tweezers.
A drop of acetic acid or what passes for cheap vinegar these days can be put on all the other similar joints because if one comes apart, more are likely to follow. this will disolve the original glue slightly and strengthen a dried out glue joint as it dries. Speaking of using cheap vinegar which is usually acetic acid (non brewed condiment) similarly, if you use vodka as alcohol for repairs as was advocaated in an earlier thread, be sure to use the cheap stuff as it is less likely to contain additives.

If the wippen is out of the action when performing the repair. While the glue is still wet, pull back on the jack until it touches the top of the wippen flange. Center it with your eyes over the flange, compare with the backcheck and make sure it is well seated. Cutting corners causes trouble all the time.

Because you used carpenter's glue, and it has been more than a few hours I believe, you will break other parts before you can remove it. Acetone and vinegar might work, but you will have to soak the part so much that other problems will occur. Bushings etc..

Take A0 or C88, and exchange wippens with the problem note. Or just break off the jack flange, and replace it.

I have access to many old action parts because I keep them when I send a piano to the dump.

One more reason to use animal glue, it allows you to easily interchange parts.

All the best

I might even go so far as to say that performing this repair with the action in the piano, apart from taking less time, is the best way to go. Of course it takes skill. Of course it takes experience, of course it takes a refined sense of touch. the backcheck position is not 100% reliable for alignment, but the hammer butt is. You know at once if there Is a chip of glue left in there because the jack won't get under the hammer butt. admittedly, I haven't done any for years now, I farm all that out to the more talented students but I must have done hundreds of them over the years and rarely had bits of glue to deal with. It's one of those things that, if you just do it with no faffing around, there are fewer complications. Taking an action out which by definition is falling apart is asking for unnecessary complications, not least the chance of glue chips and other stuff getting into the part to be repaired or between the keys. You can see that the part is lined up by simply looking at it's neighbours, you can tell by feel that it is well seated. Of course you will quickly dry fit before applying glue. Why make a huge production out of a simple repair on an old instrument??. Am I the only one who cared enough to develop this skill? I hope not.

Thanks again, I will swap the wippen with A0 (why didn't I think of that?) and I will get me some fish glue. I've heard from others about this.

That's exactly what I do, rxd. Fix it in the piano.

I've reglued a jack with the action in the piano using Titebond too. I have a long pair of tweezers and a long skinny screwdriver. Hold the jack flange with the tweezers, put some Titebond on the tip of the screwdriver blade, and work apply it to the underside of the flange. Force the flange down onto the wippen with the tweezers, then push down on it with the screwdriver blade (after cleaning it!) to make sure it's seated. Check the alignment and adjust if necessary. Feels kind of clumsy at first, but after a few times you get the hang of it. A real time saver! And like rxd said, no additional action-removal problems if the piano is old and falling apart.

Heat, such as from a heat gun will defeat epoxy in this case.

You can only swap the A0 wippen with another bass wippen, due to the direction of the spoons. Just fix the jack.

What's with all the prima donna's here ? The question was how to re-glue a simple jack joint .... why not cut the BS and stop trying to outdo every single comment made. Surely it isn't necessary to pick apart everything all the time ... no wonder so many good people get sick of this forum !!

Yeah, the nerve of everyone, posting the way they do it! :-/

All these techs chiming in and contributing their ideas and repair methods. As though this was a discussion forum or something!

Right, BDB, it won't work; I will get the flange off and do it right. Many lessons learned! Luckily the piano is a Yamaha and the customer is a friend who lives just down the road.

Johnkie, I don't find this repair much when I have worked in the UK., mainly because many European actions don't have a glue joint at the point in question, they do it the other way and the UK doesn't get the extremes of dryness that destroys glue joints. This repair is annoyingly common in other parts of the world so please be patient with us discussing it at length.
You are perfectly correct, your most recent post here does, indeed, betray the typical behavior of a prima donna. You haven't posted like that in quite a while now. This forum can teach us about more things than just pianos. I've learned a lot. How 'bout you?.
In the meanwhile, 'av a cuple o' Newkie Browns, lad 'n yer'l feel Berra in ' mornin. Cum t think on it, I'll av a cuple me'sen.
Cheers!

If I decide I can successfully re-glue the jack without removing the action, I'll remove the key, detach the bridle strap. This gives me more room to work with.

Happy to report a good outcome, touch wood (!). This will seem crazily laborious to you more experienced techs, but I brought the wippen home on Friday, since I did not know how long it would take me to get the parts apart. Household vinegar, of course, did not budge them even after repeated applications, but the heat gun finally did the trick (or maybe the vinegar helped too). Scraped off all the residue and dry-fit the parts. Discovered they really needed to be jammed together hard, and I could not imagine doing this successfully with sufficient force with the parts in the piano. (I'm not even convinced it was glue residue that impeded me the first time, it was just a very tight fit.) Used fish glue once I got back to the customer's house this morning. All is well.

I had glued lots of jack flanges when reconditioning an action when I worked at a rebuilding shop a few years ago and never had a problem, so this took me by surprise. Thanks again for all your help.

Very glad it all worked out for you Anne - You can add "expert jack flange re-gluer" to your piano tech skills now

atta girl Anne, like to about people learning new things... it's an everyday occurrence with me... any day I learn something new is a good day...