Billings Flanges = Brass Rail

[Keith McGavern]

At 8:48 PM -0400 6/2/03, Clyde Hollinger wrote:
>I agree with Terry.  These cheap repairs sometimes work and 
>sometimes they don't. ...

Clyde,

I'm certain you mean well, but these repairs are far from cheap, as I 
am interpreting your connotation to mean "of decidedly inferior 
quality", which they aren't, and not cheap as in "low in price", 
which they are.

When performed correctly, these inexpensive repair items work just 
fine and do offer the chance to save an instrument from being 
discarded, as you have suggested to Terry F. these people do by 
replacing their current piano with another.

The repair type brass devices are ingenious in their purpose and 
design, and are invaluable in the piano service repair business when 
needed.

Please know that there can come a time when there are more of the 
flanges to repair than might be deemed reasonable or cost efficient, 
but that time becomes a judgement factor for the piano technician 
and/or customer to make.

A fellow named Earl Penisten, my Dad, Clair McGavern and I have taken 
care of a one hundred year old Packard Upright for four decades of 
its life that is in exquisite shape for its age, and it is definitely 
worth repairing with the brass repair parts when that time comes. The 
customer, deceased as of 2001, bought the piano directly from Packard 
in 1905. I have yet to learn of its new whereabouts.

Keith McGavern