Steinway Aggraffe (P.S.)

[Susan Kline]

P.S. Don't forget to have plate washers with you. I theorize
that the reason the agraffe broke in the first place was that
people in a hurry in the factory muscled it into line when
it had already bottomed out, instead of turning it out and
shimming with a plate washer. The strain just stays there
for thirty or forty years, and then the brass has had enough
of it. The pianos where I've had to do this repair have
dated from the 70's. Hopefully this doesn't happen any more.

In a pinch once, I just cut a little doughnut of business card
to shim the agraffe so that it would line up perpendicular
to the string. Oddly enough, that worked okay.