----- Dear Friends, I have a Lester spinet action belonging to a long-time customer on my bench (that is, my dining room table) that needs new elbows. I thought replacing the original plastic elbows would be easy, but only the broken ones are brittle; the unbroken ones are hard as concrete. How do you replace these? Unpin them to put the new ones on? I don't want to risk breaking the wippen by trying to bend the old plastic ones. I'd be grateful for your advice, and my wife will be thrilled to get the dining room table back. Thanks, Greg Livingston PS- I have not figured out how to search the archives, though I've tried; I need help in that area, too. Greg, Tom Driscoll here from the Boston chapter. Yes do them all. Don't bend the old elbows. There are several methods for removal but usually they shatter when cut with a set of diagonal pliers. Be carefull around the center pin where it engages the whipen. The wood is very thin there but if the elbow is brittle it can be either crushed with needle nose pliers or clipped out in pieces with the flush cutter pliers used to trim center pins. If I rembember Jon Page has a modified tool for this job. Jon ? Brittle is good for removal---soft and gooey not as easy .I use the Vagias snap in elbows and leave the pin alone.Spin the drop wire into all the elbows equally and as close to the overall length of the old assembly .Less regulation later. I used to do three or four a year but most of these have been replaced or sent to heaven. It is the rare elbow job that comes my way of late. Remember that Betsey welcomes all of her childen home eventually! Have fun, Tom Driscoll -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091207/9a7d8ad7/attachment-0001.htm>
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