<html> <body> Hi, Alan, Ah...warms the cockles of my heart...and, reminds me of the annual "Piano Destruction Derby" at a place where I once worked....imagine loads of hearty lads and lassies paying a buck a swing to demolish old uprights (money went to the piano repair fund for the music department and some years it was all the parts money we got)...the Grand Finale was bonfire of the vanities of the ex-pianos...I did not join in the festivities to the point of cooking hot dogs and roasting marshmallows....  (Bill S....do they still do that there?) Thanks very much, Alan! Best. Horace At 07:59 PM 4/29/2008, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Knew the subject line would lure you in ...   Here's how Jesse French and I celebrated Earth Day: removing the old finish, reducing the piano's weight by half, tweaking certain noses, and putting badly needed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.   The most fun moment was pushing it over: Wham!   Interesting observations: Many of the plain wire strings snapped right at the speaking-side bridge pin as they got hot -- all that broke, broke at that same place (more tension in speaking segment?). Somewhere late in the game, as the pinblock area was burning (took a loooong time), the plate broke. I was not too far away and it was scary loud: Bang! I am reminded of the customer who's Kawai grand burned completely in a house fire; he asked me did I want to salvage any of the parts, perhaps the strings? Uh, no thanks. I did salvage some action pieces (stickers and whippens) and all the hardware, especially screws, I could reasonably get to. They don't now make hardware with a tenth of the quality of this 90-year-old stuff.     <img src="cid:7.1.0.9.2.20080429215644.0342b070@sonic.net.1" width=205 height=154 alt="[]">   Alan BarnardSalem, MO   P.S. If anyone is bothered by my sooty footprints, email me privately and I'll tell you a little secret.   </blockquote></body> </html>