Strip muting problem

[Warren Fisher]

Jerry,

I regularly strip mute but I use one or two of the short 1" wide rubber
grand mutes to mute between the plate braces and the last string in a
section.  When I am strip muting and come to a brace, I loop the mute
loosely over the top of the brace and then use the loop to hold the
rubber mute in place next to the brace so it won't fall down on the
strings (in a grand).  The rubber mutes I am talking about have no wire
handle.  You can also use two of the wire handle mutes after you take
the wires out.

Hope this helps,

Warren

Jerry Hunt wrote:
> 
> 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.

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Warren D. Fisher
fish@communique.net
Registered Piano Technician
Piano Technicians Guild
New Orleans Chapter 701