zagzig said:
Gordon say he cuts work time this way; he sets pads into cups with a minimal amount of shellac and then bends the keys.
In this manner I presume he is not the victim of the caprice of glue- shellac being a type of glue.
I have a few key bending tools but I have yet to use them as a substitute for adjusting pads with the needle and micro torch 'till I go out of my mind' as Musicmedic puts it.
Could I receive a few pointers in the practice of key bending?
1. Be brave. (and pads are tougher than you think.
2. Leak light is absolutely essential. It must be
locally bright.
3. Always bend too far, then back slightly, so that the metal is in a stable state. How much requires experience.
4. I am not too worried about applying pressure above the TALL part of the walls of tone holes. If the body gives minutely under them, then it probably means that the metal was in an unstable stressed state anyway, and is better off relaxed, to make the alignment adjustment stable. Where the tone hole walls are low, there is little rigidity in them, nor the body beneath.
5. Improvise. A wide range of possibilities to choose from.
6. Obtain/modify/make specialist tools as required, eg
- Shims between pad and tone hole while pushing another part of the key cup. Even a folded bank note is useful.
- Strong thumbs for pushing down high part of key cup.
- Polycarbonate punches for tapping down high areas. Some shaped to work around key guards.
- Modified pliers for forcing down the back of key cups.
- Flat jaw pliers on the Key cup arm, for side to side translations and angling.
- Modified pliers for re-aligning small key cups.
- etc
- See photo.