Posted by K on October 02, 2003 at 16:56:57:
In Reply to: MW 2000 Valve buttons posted by Chris Combest on October 02, 2003 at 14:20:16:
When threadings are worn out for good the pro repairmen have to enter.
For threadings still having some grooves there are extremely cheap tricks to be pulled for players not having easy access to the experts:
The best first step would be Teflon tape. Often referred to by the cunning guys. Never tried it myself.
My solution for the "small" problems is to cut a corner off a thin plastic bag intended for storing food in the fridge. Put a snip into the female thread, enter the male thread, and pull or cut off the excess plastic. This trick also works wonders on the tapered end of rotor axles not fitting well with the inner conicity of stop arm cranks.
Larger thread problems also have a solution of the elderly arthritic players like myself. We often get medicine in blister packaging. These are great sources for tooth picks and other purposes. Among them the almost shot threading of the 1st valve button in my York Master BBb.
Amateuring around with instrumental technicalities should find their limit. One thing I learned to stay away from are spiral springs for rotor valves. They have a tension limit, which takes more skills than mine to avoid. So some of my levers are now returning to zero by means of textile elastics originally intended for keeping crucial underwear in place. The funny thing is, that this amateur solution generally applies the more optimal force vectors, than do the spiral springs. leading to less axis wear.
Klaus