Strip muting problem

[Jerry Hunt]

After doing some repairs on a 1911 Feuhr & Stemmer (the subject of a
previous post, for which I received some valuable tips - thanks again),
and a couple of pitch raises, I went a couple of days ago to do the fine
tuning. I discovered, much to my chagrin, that because the strings are
very close to the plate (this appears to be by design, and not due to
some problem that has crept up over the years), it was nearly impossible
to get a strip to stay between the strings. So I used my thinnest strip,
poked it in the best I could, and juggled wedge mutes frantically, but
that made checks, such as series of thirds, etc., quite difficult.

Does anyone have any suggestions as how best to handle this sort of
problem? My first inclination was to tell the customer that I needed to
burn in a hammer and "accidentally" set the whole piano on fire, but
then decided that would be bad customer relations :o) But seriously, any
help with stripping, or alternative (other than using 50 wedge mutes)
would be greatly appreciated.