Plastic (old) elbow dilemma

[J Patrick Draine]

>Dear list,  Perhaps some of you could give some advice on my situation.
>Recently a customer called and said some of her notes were broken.  After
>asking a few questions, I realized that she had an old spinet with the
>disentegrating elbow syndrome.  I explained to her that fixing a few would
>just be a stop gap remedy and she might in fact be better off with another
>piano.  As fate would have it, its a ? family heirloom (lame) and yet she
>just wants the broken ones fixed and the piano tuned.  I plan on tuning the
>piano first and fear that I will break many more.  She does not want to
>replace them all at this point.  I feel like I might be getting into a mess
>of a situation here. Perhaps I should cancel unless she wants to spring for a
>complete replacement.  And even then the other plastic, if any, may soon
>start crumbling.  So what do you fellows do in a situation such as this?
>Thanks in advance. Jim Love /PTG Associate/Midland, Tx.

I think the answer is to be as direct as possible about the situation,
without panicking. I generally invoke Harvey's Rule of Six: if 6 of some
type of piano component have failed, it's an indicator that the whole set
*ought to* be replaced. If the customer is unwilling to invest in a whole
set of plastic elbows, he needs to be aware that the next time another one
fails, you will be billing for a standard service call to come out and
replace even just one elbow. Also, let them know that you're not
responsible for any elbows that fail under your tuning test blows.

Good luck (I think I've got a partial elbow job this morning!),
Patrick