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Minutes of the October Meeting
by Marty Dinerstein - Secretary

The October meeting of Nassau PTG was held on October 8, 2002 at the church in Baldwin. Ten regular members and two guests attended. The guests were Lee Dobrins and Bill Garlick. The September minutes were read and accepted, and a treasurer's report was given and accepted. Mike Slavin reported that the committee is working on a place for the Christmas party and we will be notified shortly. There were no other reports. Our technical was given by Alex Kostakis of A and C Pianocraft in New York City. He showed his method of hanging hammers. Alex puts the shanks on a tray and aligns the tails and strike points using a straight edge. He uses a jig to place the hammers and uses packing tape for travel paper. He travels the hammers three times before gluing them with extra glue for a collar. He also lines up the heads and tails with a straight edge. He puts travel paper on the shanks and makes sure that the hammers are moving uniformly when they travel. Alex works on eight adjacent hammers at a time.

The meeting ended at 10 PM with a lively question and answer session. We thank Alex for his excellent presentation.

Pianotek

Tech Tip
by Michael Slavin, RPT

Except on the most compact direct-blow and drop actions, replacing a broken jack spring usually does not require removing the action from the piano. If you remove the bridle strap from the wire and remove the keystick from the piano, the wippen will drop down at an angle between the tails of the two adjacent keysticks, and permit access to the lower remainder of the broken spring from above. Grab the protruding spring wire with a pair of needle-nose pliers and pull it out of its wippen seat. Clean the spring seat hole with a jack-reaming tool, taking care not to push down too hard on the wippen thus bending the damper spoon; support the front of the wippen with a finger if necessary during this process. Fill the jack seat hole with a bit of glue by reaching in with a thin stick or an old screwdriver blade. Compress a new jack spring with a large pair of tweezers (by squeezing the middle section of the spring), place the lower coils into the glue in the wippen seat, and release the tweezer permitting the upper coils to seat in the jack hole. Trip the jack, replace the keystick and bridle strap, and the repair is complete.

Rothstein