After seeing pictures from Owen, I decided to give it a try on my instrument since it was all apart anyway.  I had a machine shop I trust fabricate something similar which reached around to the back side of the upper belly rail.(but not over the top) They were long enough to reach up to about 1/8th inch below the sound board.  I drilled and tapped each one with two holes to receive 10-32 machine screws.  I then carefully marked the location of the holes on the front side of the belly rail right up close to the sound board.  I had just enough room in the register gap to drill the holes through the belly rail with a right angle attachment for a drill and a short drill bit.  I then was able to tighten the screws into the lifters good and tight - I used and endoscopic camera snaked up between the upper and lower belly rails to help me position the lifters to get the screws started and examine my work after it was all done.  I am just now starting to put the jacks in.  Perhaps in a couple years I'll know if it was worth all the work.  Since I don't know if my Rube Goldberg version of this elegant idea will work - luckily they can be removed if I want to just go with elevator screws someday.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Norm Purdy" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent 5/29/2017 10:38:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Skowroneck's liftersDoing a thought experiment and trying to visualize the difficulties:
Has anyone tried to retrofit lifters into an existing instrument?  It
would be a devil of a task, I'm sure.  Are the tops secured into a
mortise or some kind of rabbit into the top of the belly rail before the
soundboard is glued in?  Or could they be attached somehow (screws?)
flush with the front surface of the belly rail? (Let in so that the
guides would not be impeded.)  All this may not be possible anyway,
given the limited space to work in the gap.  Rather like laproscopic
surgery.  Just wondering if anyone has tried it.
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