A Baldwin R in the shop just now has the ends of the damper wires all chewed up like they were spun against a 36 grit sanding belt before being bent. I assume it was to take out the spread in the ends from clipping them to length, but it produced teeth at the wire end instead. Pulling them out of the blocks reamed the hole bigger. The blocks also have those lovely hard rubber sostenuto tabs, so they'll be replaced. Damper guide bushings are glued in nice and solid with hide glue. Easy enough to drill out to replace. This was the easiest soundboard I ever removed. Took about fifteen minutes, and came out virtually undamaged. The gap between the panel and outer rim probably helped there. I liked it. Left nearly no spruce on the rim, but there was more glue smeared around under there than in any other piano I've seen. They used a whole lot of glue and got what looked to be a borderline too cold joint for the hide glue. Makes me wonder what happened. Maybe Monday morning in the belly shop... Ron N
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