Here's a solution for Pencil Eater Fallboards. Seems like it's usually the old S&S and M&H pianos and others with the rounded fallboard lip that cause the trouble. Anyway, get a 10' length of 1/2 " rigid plastic water pipe from the hardware store (about $4). Cut from it two pieces the length of the fallboard. From the fabric store get 1/4 yard of nice black wool gabardine. (This will usually be 54" wide.) Cut it to the length of the fallboard plus an inch, to allow for a finishing hem on each end. Then hem both of the long edges as you would a curtain to receive a curtain rod. In this case, you have two curtain rods (the plastic pipe); one sits behind the stretcher on top of the bellyman felt; the other hangs over the lip of the fallboard, depending minimally. This device then bridges the pencil-hungry maw quite inconspicuously. It interferes not with the music desk, nor with the activities of the tuner. It does protrude a very little in front of the fallboard, but not enough to cause any trouble save for those performers of Rachmaninoff who benefit from the folding fallboard lip on the modern S&S D and B. An improvement might be to use smaller diameter tubing or rod. However, I know of nothing cheaper than the plastic plumbing pipe. Now, I hope that the folks who make piano covers and such will pick up on this. (Are you listening Jennifer Reiter?) It might make them some money and provide an oft-needed accessory. I hereby place this idea in the public domain, with a hope that anyone who picks up on it will do me the courtesy of sending me a copy for beta testing! BTW, you'll have just enough of the plastic pipe left over to make a field artillery-sized bean shooter. - Tom McNeil, RPT - Vermont Piano Restorations
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