Hi, Eliot: Birdcages are for the birds, NOT piano tuners. Instead of the damper mechanism being placed behind the hammer hammer mechanism as in a modern upright, it is placed in front of it, wih the damper heads, themselves, placed above the hammers. Because this archaic, long-abandoned, inef- ficient, poorly-placed damper system completely covers the strings, it greatly slows-down the tuning process because not only is strip-muting impossible, but the damper mechanism is constantly interferring with your placement of the rubber mutes you are forced to use instead. Further, such pianos are NOT over-strung, with the bass strings crossing over the treble strings, but are straight-strung, with all the string running parallel to one another. Not just that birdcage damper system, but the piano's entire construction, was discarded and rendered obsolete long ago. My advice is to forget about birdcage pianos altogether. They are a waste of the tuner's time and talents, when he could-- and should-- be working on something more meaningful, more worthwhile, and more relevant to his profession as a technician who tunes and services "modern" pianos built in the last century, or so. Leave birdcages to the birds. Les Smith
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