Dear Phil, No big deal ... just part of living. Before the Vagias Snap-On elbows you would have had plenty to grouse about! Just keep some with you at all times. Needlenose pliers will usually shatter the remnants off the wire easily enough. If you meet a "tough" one, turn it off. I use vice grips to grab the wire -- makes turning on the new ones easier. If you use a felt-tip pen to mark how far up the wire the old ones reached, you can save some time adjusting lost motion when you install them, by having them in the ballpark to start with. Seven would make a good argument for total replacement, but if it's only one or 2, I usually just replace them and wait and see how fast others break. Sometimes it will be years before any others go. Since the new plastic looks different no one will claim that your repairs broke instead of more originals. Just explain the tradeoff to the owner, and give them the choice of when or if to replace them all. The only real pain is that sometimes some of this plastic is unaccountably well-preserved, and won't shatter off the whippen center pin. That would be a good reason to sell the whole job, and do it on the bench, IMHO, since you don't want to go breaking the sides of the whippen or straining the whippen flange. Usually there aren't any "tough guys", but if there are there are usually only a few, and it's safer to take the part off the rail and remove the old remnant by repinning. Remember to look for plastic flanges first, and avoid removing them, if you possibly can. Order some wooden S-2 flanges when you order the elbows. The owner may not be intentionally lying about the interval. Time compresses when people remember how long it's been. I find it's a universal trait. Some psychologist should do a study. <g> Regards, Susan --------------------------------------------------------- At 08:12 PM 6/16/97 -0400, you wrote: >...lester spinet..circa 1954..the woman says it hasn't been tuned in *4-5 >years*..bull...more like 8-10 years..93 cents flat...also complained about a >couple of keys not working..opened it up and guess what i found...that's >right..plastic elbows..i read some of the horror stories here and heard a >couple more at LB's shop..told this woman that i would have to order the >parts and return to complete the pitch raise..well, as i was tuning it, i >broke 5 more..sound familiar to anyone..??..yea, i figured as much... > >..welcome to the biz, tito..!! > Susan Kline P.O. Box 1651 Philomath, OR 97370 skline@proaxis.com "If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn 365 useless things." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
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