Pencil Eaters

[McNeilTom@aol.com]

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