Whenever the plate is pulled out of a piano, the V-bar or capo d'astro is going to be polished for strings to pass by smoothly. The V-bar on this piano is very rusty. We are going to make it shiny. To better observe the polishing process, the top of the V-bar is painted with a thick marker. We use a ski file to file off the rust on both sides of the ridge leaving a thin mark line on top. This can be done also by a guitar file. The company Stewmac sells it as Offset Diamond Fret File. According to Hillary York, instructor at North Bennet Street School, this file works very efficiently at dressing the V-bar. Simply file the cast iron bar with this tool until all rust comes off and the top of the V-bar is shiny, then finish sanding and polishing with sand paper from 220 grid to 600 grid. We have several V-bar dressing block made out of maple. The channel angle on the bottom is about 120°. Wrap a 220 grid sand paper strips over the 120° little channel and sand the top of the V-bar until all marker mark is gone and no string groove is left. Change to finer sand paper strip until 1000 grid. For the final polish, use the 1000 grid strip to shoeshine the V-bar. Run a finger through the entire V-bar. It should feel smooth without bumps or roughness. This plate is going to be refinished. We tape a length of 3mm or 1/8" strip tape over the V-bar to protect it from the finishing material. Now, the V-bar is well dressed and protected. The plate can be flipped right side up and be prepared for the golden coats.
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