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- Santa Cruz, CA
Yes: I was talking about the tenor's screw, as I understood the photo order.
BWs likely had, on occasion, the same "opportunistic" cheat that you'll find on some of my Crescents: a weird, foamy bit, shoved into the pivot hole acting like a sort of plumber's tape insertion or teflon spacer on some keys. Even with the shoulderless BW, I suspect if you stick a dental tool down into the pivot holes eventually you'll pull one of these out.
I didn't realize they were there until using some Crescent keywork for custom keywork replacement.
It's exactly things like that that separate Taiwan from PRC. I agree the spring loaded isn't necessary, and is kind of a "cheat" that's slightly inefficient, but it's on the early Refs and I haven't seen anybody complain about lost efficiency. I agree it's there, but it's just not something most people would notice, until having it "pointed out."
I can make a long list of what was normally wrong with Crescents when they came from the factory, and I'm confident the BWs had similar issues coming straight from the factory. After my engraving and pivots (from drawings/notes and links I sent them) showed up on the non-ASPD BWs, some months after I gave the factory the requests and diagrams, I didn't send them any further instructions or notes on assembly and set-up. Everything that could be done here, I did here. So I have a pretty good idea what your normal pre-playtest routine was, "back in the day."
The original Crescent rodscrews look exactly like in the photo I intended to refer to, though: cone shaped abraded area astride the slot, sort of parabolic, smooth, unnecessary, as if someone ran it sidelong against the side of an abrasive belt first one side, then the other. The only reason I can think of for that to exist is that they cut the screw slot and then ended up with boogers on the side, so what was intended to be a 1-step finish became a 2-step finish, not quite entirely automated. I don't have a lot more details than that. I almost never used the PRC factory's rodscrews for anything but replacements for other products from them. The metal was so weird, even if I had to replace a rodscrew from the factory normally I'd replace with one "made from scratch" (with a different steel more amenable to being worked).
[edit: I should add (to not be misinterpreted): I'm not saying in that last par that the screw metal itself was inferior. In a way, it's superior. It was/is very stiff, and difficult to cut because so stiff/hard. It was just not what we normally see, as far as rodscrew metal.]
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