loose pedal lyres

[Dave Nereson]

          What do you guys and gals do with loose pedal boxes, besides
putting a book underneath (just kidding)?  I've always taken the lyre to the
shop, drilled out the wedges (much drilling with different size bits at
various angles, followed by careful chiseling and gouging) until it will
knock apart with a rubber mallet, then sand, chisel, scrape off as much old
glue as possible to get maximum bare wood exposure (but trying not to reduce
the dimensions of the tenons or expand the holes too much), then glue the
whole thing together and insert new hardwood wedges (which I usually have to
make myself, axe and hammer handle wedges being too small -- does anybody
sell bags of pre-cut wedges for piano lyres?), then clamp the whole assembly
overnight, then the next day, trim the ends of the wedges, clean up and do
minor touch-up  --  quite time consuming.    One tech I know doesn't
bother -- he just CA-glues the heck out of it and says he's never had a
problem, but I don't trust it to last over the years.   If you do it the
long way, do you pound the wedges in while you're glueing the posts to the
top block and pedal box, or do you wait until the assembly has dried, then
pound the wedges in last?
    With some Asian pianos, loose lyre parts produce "polyester squeak",
where two polished surfaces squeak against each other.  I've tried to
chisel, sand, scrape the polyester away so I can glue bare wood to bare
wood, but polyester and any type of glue, for that matter, really soaks into
the grain and makes the wood more like a hard plastic.   The pedal box
sometimes isn't entirely of wood -- there can be a plastic insert (mortise)
where the tenon enters the pedal box but you can't see it because the
polyester finish hides it.  It doesn't chisel, sand, or scrape without
chipping or breaking or sending a crack across the whole top of the pedal
box.  I guess CA would work here, but does it hold?  Will it last?
                                                                            
                            --David Nereson, RPT, Denver