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<title>How vermin benefit mankind</title>
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<body>Case file: Customer calls with a 1920s Gulbransen upright which was, until undergoing a major tubes-and-bellows-ectomy, a player, but now coaches in the minor leagues. It lives at a resort where it was stored, unplayed by humans, for 10 years on a screened porch. "It still sounds great," says the owner, "but the tuning might need touching up." (Yes, think I, and the Titanic might need a new paint job, too.)<br /><br />Inspection: Actually not too bad. 60 cents flat, or so. Bass a little tubby. Tuner also a little tubby, but that's another story. Some mouse damage and a giant mouse nest under the bass keys. <br /><br />Worst physical problem: Keys rattle and wobble like crazy at the front rail. I put them in Spurlock racks and take them to Ye Olde Shoppe for rebushing without even bothering to look at the undersides of the keys.<br /><br />UFO Sightings and Other Weird Stuff: I turn the keys over on the bench, ready to soak, steam, yuck and pluck the old felt out. Ain't none. Gone. 99.9 percent gone; clean, no damage to the wood, mortises look like they were just cut. Only two teeeensy vestiges of red felt left to give evidence that they keys had <em>ever</em> been felted. Nice surprise to find 1/2 the job done!<br /><br />Mystery: Who et 'em? Roaches? Moths? Tiny aliens? Mice would have torn up the wood and couldn't have got up into the mortises so effectively, methinks.<br /><br />Reason for Wondering: I want to find the perps who did this. I want to domesticate them. I want to train them to do this work on demand; their craftsmanship or, should I say, craftsverminship is excellent. I want to rent them out, as a team, to you other techs for big bucks.<br /><br />Ohandbytheway: After reinstalling the keys, easing and squeezing, removing about three bucketsful of lost motion, etc., the piano really is, as I was told, not to durned bad. It has a big, rich sound, is very musical, and plays well. Whaddayaknow!<br /><br />Alan Barnard<br />Salem, MO<br /></body>
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