Plastic (old) elbow dilemma

[Susan Kline]

Richard wrote, about replacing only a few elbows: 

>Good point... but then on a 30 to 40+ year old drop action I kinda have to
think
>that this is the exception to the rule and not the norm. 

It is, but I've known it to happen. If only one or two are broken, 
and I find that the shards from them are "tough" rather than "brittle", 
I don't like quoting for the whole job. The plastic that stays chewy 
instead of shattering can be a royal pain to get off the whippens. 

Whether the plastic stays "tough" depends, probably, upon climate and 
temperature, and possibly on whether solutions of any kind were used on 
the action. Also, since plastic flanges often tend to get sluggish, I 
believe I've seen spinets where an early kind of damppchaser was 
standard factory equipment. These early ones cooked all the time, 
and I think that the heat greatly accelerated the plastic failure. 
The most fragile set I ever saw was in an old woman's apartment, which 
must have been over 80 degrees F. 

We forget that most of these actions also have plastic flanges, just 
waiting to fail, and many are sluggish as well. 

While I will replace an elbow or two, and often don't need to replace 
others for years, I flat refuse to replace plastic flanges, jacks, or 
damper levers one at a time. I find that just getting the part off 
to replace the flange will shatter others. For the consoles with 
the plastic parts, it's all or nothing. Bending the new damper wires 
can be great fun [NOT].

Susan