Rattles & squeaks

[TunerJeff@aol.com]

Dear Avery,

     Your solution may work well, and permanently. If the Teflon is
well-seated into the buckskin, the job is done. Us tuner/techs in the field
often have these squeaky contact points in ancient grands, too. Consider the
softness of an 80-yr-old hunk that's glued to the trapwork under the keybed!
It's fairly typical for spring contact points to squeak, too.
Quite often the pedal-dowels are simply ramming into a hunk of (not) soft
leather or buckskin adhered to the trapwork. Squeaks? You better believe it!

     In these cases, I use a mixture of the old and the new;

     Place a small amount of graphite on the fingertip, and add a drop of CLP
(Protek).
Work the mixture into the contact point. The CLP works as a carrier, and
helps the graphite to work it's way into the leather. Used to use alcohol
(denatured/rubbing type) to help the graphite... but the CLP has it's own
lubricants floating in suspension, too. Seems to be quite effective. Haven't
needed to repeat the process anywhere I've applied it.

Have fun!

Sincerely,
Jeffrey T. Hickey, RPT
Oregon Coast Piano Services
TunerJeff @ aol.com

ps-
     Is that lock ever used? Could you pull the lock and insert a piece of
leather or felt to 'tighten' the mechanism in it's slot? Sometimes a tiny bit
of pressure is enough to 'kill' the rattle. Hopefully, someone's got a better
idea!