The general meeting for this month will be held on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 starting at 7 p.m. at:

Please note: Frank and Camille's closes at 8 p.m. The meeting must begin promptly.

This month's technical class will focus on adhesives, and will be given by Doug Gregg of the Long Island-Suffolk Chapter, familiar to all of us for his numerous contributions to the "Tips Tools & Techniques" column in the Journal.

Douglas Gregg DVM, PhD

Douglas Gregg is a retired veterinary pathologist with an education background. He was on faculty of several veterinary schools and organized training courses at Plum Island Animal Disease Center during his early career. Later he did pathology diagnostics and research on foreign animal disease at Plum Island. His wife claims he is the founding member of “Glue of the Month Club”. Since doing a term paper in advanced chemistry in high school on adhesives, it has been a life long passion. During college, he worked in nearly all the different construction trades during summers, and learned much about tools and materials of various trades.

Before retiring, he was heavily involved in the restoration and expansion of a church pipe organ for about 7 years. Then with the help of his brother-in-law from Steinway, migrated into piano work as a full time retirement job, and currently has a shop in Southold with about 30 pianos on hand in various stages of restoration or decay, in a few cases. He has presented at PTG national with a French polishing workshop in Seattle and in Chicago, a lecture on adhesives. Other Suffolk chapter presentations have included solo piano moving and Using Tools of Other Trades. He has also regularly submitted TT&T tips for the Journal and is active in the pianotech forum on the web. The May Nassau chapter meeting presentation will be based on the Chicago presentation with some TT&Ts included. It is called Adhesives- a scientific approach, but it is more about how to read, understand, and use manufacturers adhesive data sheets, than a lesson in advanced chemistry. There should be something for everyone.

The Executive Committee will meet prior to the general meeting at 5 p.m. at the Carle Place Diner, on the northeast corner of Old Country Road and Glen Cove Road.

Next month's meeting will be our year-end dinner party, to be held on Tuesday evening June 10, 2014 at 7 p.m. at this highly acclaimed Spanish restaurant (New York Times):

Sangria 71
71 Hillside Avenue
Williston Park, New York 11596
(516) 246-9778

The full-course dinner is $50 per person, which includes unlimited wine, beer, or sangria. We hope everyone will plan to attend. Further details will appear in next month's newsletter. Please send your reservations/payment to our treasurer:

Paul Keogler
c/o Dancing Ivories
11 Washington Avenue
Bay Shore, NY 11706

I was recently called to repair a console with a sustain pedal that was not functioning. It was a 1950s vintage instrument, and the problem was that the plastic damper rod hinges had broken and the rod was no longer rotating and lifting the damper lever flanges. I did not have replacement parts for this repair, and the supply house catalogues showed that they have been discontinued (as have the standard bushed tubular metal ones as well). A workable substitute proved to be a 1/8-inch cable clamp (which comes with a complete Dampp Chaser system to secure the warning light wire), available in any hardware store. I needed to reduce the overall length just a little, so that it fit into a slot in the wooden action rail, and the mounting hole had to be repositioned in the action rail as well so that the damper rod maintained its original placement. I reamed the hole with a 9/64" bit just to be sure that the damper rod hanger hooks had sufficient clearance and did not bind within the clamp, and applied some solid Protek MPL lubricant to assure ease of motion and quiet operation. Some damper regulation was also required, but otherwise the cable clamp proved to be a perfect solution.

It is with great sadness that we must announce the passing last month of long-time member Marilyn Hesichober, who follows our very recent loss of her husband Norman