Hi Leo, Good to see you're not letting life get you down. It's just this sort of "Pandora's Box" phobia that has been responsible for the general lack of evolution in pianos in the last hundred years. If all the R&D information behind some of the oddities we see in old pianos (some of which worked very well), had been made available to the industry after the patent period had expired, instead of setting in a box under the sink until the janitor threw it out when the new tenants moved in, we would have a lot better idea of what does and doesn't work in a piano and why. So much hard won information has been lost and wasted, some of it good, some of the good - revolutionary. That's the fate of "trade secrets". The unconscionably high percentage of professional work that I have had to finish, alter, or tear down and re-do to get what I contracted for in the first place leads me to wonder how many so called professionals are just ignorant no talent clods like myself who are hiding their incompetence behind a general non disclosure policy, lest they be found out by their captive audience. There will always be do it yourselfers, thank God, who will resent being continually helpless and victimized by some clown in a "professional's" mask, and attempt to protect themselves through personal education. They will muck up a lot of stuff on the way, but if they have a working brain cell at their disposal, they will have learned something about their capabilities and limitations. Not only that, they will have learned an equally valuable something about the capabilities, limitations, and legitimacy of the revered professionals they are forced by circumstance to rely upon. They will, as a result, more deeply appreciate the good work of a capable professional. The difference between attempting to do something yourself, and hiring it done, lies in the perception of the trade off of tool cost and difficulty/unpleasantness of the labor, verses the cost of the professional/likelihood of the job being done satisfactorily. Learning the difference between the perception and the reality first hand makes potentially wiser and more resourceful consumers. If they can do the job better than the professional, the professional has no business pretending to be a professional. This is too often the case. Personally, I wouldn't want any part of a job any knuckle dragger who could work a doorknob in under three attempts could shuffle in off the streets and do with ten minutes training and a black box. I'd be embarrassed to show up and expect to be paid for going through the motions, and would be off looking for a more demanding and entertaining job. But that's just my opinion. Ron N
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