Slipping Paps wedge

[Susan Kline]

This is stranger and stranger, Michael. You're describing problems which my 
Papp's mutes have never had. They don't pop out when I play the note. They 
don't get thinner or slipperier over time, I haven't had to trim them, they 
don't wear down from rusty wire, of which they see a lot, and they've never 
broken.

Whatever the change of material was (sometime after 1979) it was a BAD IDEA.

Best, from Oregon at midnight

At 04:34 PM 7/2/2005 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello Susan and List
>Yes I too have had them break. It's because I tune a lot of pianos and 
>shoving them in between rusty old strings tends to wear them away. I have 
>sometimes cut off the old "waisting" and retrimmed the old Papps to the 
>correct profile. The newer the Papps wedge the better they stay in situ 
>when tuning. The older and more smooth-worn they get the more likely they 
>are to pop out as you hit that note. So gently sand - or emery - that 
>"waisting" until it's rougher and the wedge stays where it's put.
>A new Papps wedge doesn't cost an arm and a leg and I hate it when they 
>pop out at you.
>Regards from windy Sussex-on-Sea.
>Michael G.(UK)