<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3268" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial>IMHO, whereas I like to do everything myself, I certainly am aware of the benefits of subbing out some piano rebuilding/repair tasks. And whereas doing the stitch-n-lock process looks like oodles of fun to do, a task like this that one will likely only run into once in their career - if ever, well let's just say that a reasonable argument can be made to sub this work out.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial>Terry Farrell</FONT></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV>Well they aren't ALL quite that expensive &c. There's a crusty ol' fellow in the greater Boston area who has been doing it forever & (at least a couple years ago) was very very reasonable. Charged a colleague about $450 to mend a shattered plate. We invited him to give a tech presentation for the local PTG meeting. While he had a slide show of various boilers, engines, & other heavy duty stuff that he had mended better than new, he really wasn't ready to teach *us* how to do it in one evening. A bit taciturn, and protective of his "trade secrets." Can't blame him for that, and his prices were extremely reasonable. <DIV>Patrick Draine<BR><BR> <DIV class=gmail_quote>On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Fenton Murray <<A href="mailto:fmurray@cruzio.com">fmurray@cruzio.com</A>> wrote:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">They fly these guys out to ships dead in the water to repair engine blocks.<BR>They had just returned from a power plant in another country when I was<BR>there. Pretty amazing. They have dozens of patents on their hardware.<BR><FONT color=#888888>Fenton<BR></FONT> <DIV class=Ih2E3d><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>