lessons learned

[Tvak@aol.com]

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To all

Today I taught myself a couple of lessons.   First of all, I will never break 
the following rule ever again:

Don't ever...ever....even TOUCH a plastic flange unless it is glued to the 
doorknob of the exit door and even only then if there's no other way out.

I replaced a set of elbows today.   I knew that it had plastic wippen 
flanges.   Why was I so careless snapping that first elbow in place?   The price?   
Removal of the spinet action to replace the cracked plastic wippen flange.   

The other 87 elbows snap in place with no further problem due to extreme care 
on my part.   Adjust the lost motion and...play the piano.   Hmmm...the 
hammer on middle C is double striking.   I'll just move the backcheck forward 
and... (What was I thinking...?)

Out comes the spinet action to replace the newly broken plastic wippen 
flange.   While replacing the wippen flange I brush against a damper lever and...now 
I can replace the plastic damper flange on that damper lever and... the one 
next to it which I also bumped into with the screwdriver.

Back goes the action and as I play the piano I realize that the damper lever 
on D5 is not damping due to it's also being cracked.   (I did look at them all 
while they were out of the piano, but it was not visually apparent.)   Now, I 
was nowhere near D5 so I wonder if this was a pre-existing problem, which 
leads me to the next lesson I learned:

Check the piano first to see if there are any problems.   

BTW, my original service call on this piano was 6 months ago at which time I 
replaced 4 elbows and informed the client of the existence of all the plastic 
flanges, and the costs involved in replacing them.   I advised him NOT to put 
any money into this Lester spinet, other than replacing those 4 elbows that 
had already broken.   Six months later he called to tell me to go ahead with the 
elbows.    In the back of my mind I was thinking, wasn't this the piano with 
all the plastic flanges?   But rather than say anything, I just went ahead and 
made the appointment.   Which leads me to the last lesson for the day:

Take better notes on each piano for future reference.

I rarely share my experiences with others on the list.    Hope this was worth 
reading...

Tom Sivak

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