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Austin Chapter PTG
Newsletter
February 2008
Next meeting - Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. at the UT School of Music, room M3.112.
"Installing a new damper back action" is the subject of Jeff Farris's presentation this Monday night. This
promises to be a very interesting meeting. Jeff has typed up a hand out with the reasons why you should consider installing a new back action, including all the steps necessary to do it. There will also be a slide
show of this work on the overhead projector.
Jeff Farris has been working on pianos for nearly twenty years. He started at Bernard Mollberg's restoration shop doing
refinishing work and gradually moving into key and action work. Never much interested in tuning, he remained employed there for six years before moving to Strait Music Company, where he focused more on tuning, and
field repairs. He worked for Strait for ten years, running the piano repair shop in a retail environment. Also he was employed at Dan King's rebuild shop for two years, doing restringing, damper replacement, action
reconditioning, and tuning. He is now employed half time at UT as part of the piano tech team.
Before the meeting, from 7:00 to 7:30, we will be in M3.112 with the vertical hammer jig. We have six associate members who
have passed the written test in 2007! Because they are now ready to take the technical exam, we're providing this time for them or anyone else who would like to practice replacing hammer shanks and shaping hammers.
Upcoming meetings
This year's meetings will be held on the first Monday of the month at the same time and place, unless otherwise notified.
March
- Tom Seay will give a presentation on center pinning and flange rebushing, with an eye towards taking the technical examination
April - Bernard Molberg will host us at his shop close to Blanco. (This will be on a Saturday morning, details to
follow.)
May
- Bill Cory will give us his presentation on tuning stability, which is the same class he will be presenting at the national convention this June in California. For more information about the upcoming convention, go to http://ptg.org/conv/2008/
************ IMPORTANT REMINDER ************
As of January 1, 2008, Associates can no longer use the PTG logo in advertising and printed materials, according to
the Home Office. This is another good reason to upgrade to RPT. This is not to say that we don't love our Associates, 'cause we do. So all you Associate members out there, get busy and work hard towards obtaining
your RPT classification. You'll be glad you did.
See you Monday night.
Steve Walthall, RPT
President
cell phone 512-680-3366
Tom Seay, RPT
Vice-President
454-1452
Joe Dunn
Secretary/Treasurer
268-5000
Austin Chapter Website
http://austinptg.org
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