Plastic elbows - technical tip

[Susan Kline]

Bill Simon wrote:

> The 
>amount of felt sticking out each side of the bird's eye, and sticking out
the 
>slot varies a lot throughout a set of elbows. 

I've made a few jokes, now and then, about Vagias's pet squirrel not 
chewing off the felt quite so well that day, maybe due to a hangover? 
... While I've trimmed the protruding felt often enough, I've never 
used the toothpick idea. Who knows, maybe you've given me a reason 
to _look forward to_ my next elbow replacement job? 

>(p.s. - I recently saw a piano in which two of the old pink Vagias elbows 
>were actually broken. The "upper jaw"above the groove was broken up and
off,  
>as from an incredibly hard blow. 

I've seen this, too, but they always looked quite old. The old opaque 
ones, maybe cream colored? I've never seen them fail anywhere except 
the upper jaw, above the slot. 

Susan