Yes! We have no spoon benders!

[Dave Nereson]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Tvak@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 9:37 AM
Subject: Yes! We have no spoon benders!


> I recently ordered a combination tool spoon bender (among other items)
from
> APSCO.   ..........................
>
> What do you all think of this?  Am I simply expecting too much personal
> attention in this day and age?
>
> Tom Sivak
>
    No, businesses have become worse and worse about customer service.  They
should call or send a card or e-mail right away if they don't have an item
in stock, instead of letting you wait the whole time until the shipment
comes.  I couldn't believe how long Schaff went (25 years) before finally
publishing a new catalog.  Almost a third of the items in the old catalog
were discontinued, and for the new stuff, you had to have saved all their
single-sheet flyers, inserts, updates, etc.
    But regarding spoon benders, the only one I've found that actually works
is the Yamaha type, and even it doesn't work on some types of spoons.
There's probably no one spoon bender that works on all actions, kinda like
capstan wrenches -- you need at least 3 or 4.  The most ridiculous, useless
"spoon benders" (why they even make them and have them in the catalog is
beyond me) are the ones intended for spinets.  It's darn near impossible to
get the thing onto the spoon, and if you do, you can't bend up because
you'll hit the bottom of the keybed, and the tool is so flexible you can't
tell if you're bending it or the spoon.  It's a total rip-off.  But how
would a beginning tech know that without finding out the hard way?  After
all, it's in a catalog intended for professionals.  But then they still
offer key button "tighteners" that swage the wood (compress the fibers
against the keypin).   And in consoles, you can't bend a spoon towards you,
usually, without removing keys, because your hand or the tool just hits the
key buttons and that's as far as you can go.   Many times, I remove the
action bolt nuts, tip the action toward me, then reach down behind with a
straight damper wire bender and get done faster than fishing for spoons with
the spoon bender.
    There's lotsa stuff about the "big two" supply houses (now one, I guess,
but they still have separate catalogs) that irks me no end, but I won't
start in on 'em with this post.                            --Dave Nereson,
RPT, Denver