In the 11-06-14 MMD, Paul Baker is asking for sources for pressure
bars.  He wrote that he had to replace the bars because they have
become brittle with age.

I never have heard about changing pressure bars.  It seems not to
be a common problem, otherwise the suppliers that he was asking for
replacements surely would have been able to solve his problem by
selling him the desired lengths of rods.  If so, he would have to bend
and drill the raw bar in order to get correct copies of the original
bars, to make sure they will fit in that particular piano.

If you have to do that, you also can buy a round rod of brass.  If
you are capable of drilling and bending a new pressure bar, using
a D-shaped rod, you will be able as well to produce a new pressure bar
using a normal round length of brass.

But may be it's even easier to solve the problem, if that brittleness
stands for the surface of the bars.  We often do see chrome-plated
bars -- that chrome surface indeed can become brittle but such plating
easily can be renewed.  Another solution is polishing.

And I have seen painted pressure bars!  By the way, this is a nice
catalogue:  https://www.pianoparts.com/ipscat.pdf 

Jan Kijlstra
The Netherlands