I tuned an old Cable upright piano in Loganville, GA today that had a broken glue joint on one jack flange. There are 88 jacks in every piano, that's right, one for every key. The jack is what pushes the hammer up to strike the string when your finger pushes down a key. The jack flange attaches the jack to a lever called the wippen. It is very common in what I call "Big Ol' Uprights" for the glue joint that holds the jack to the wippen to fail, especially if the piano has been victim to an assault by a young child who has pounded the keys too hard. When the jack flange, glue joint fails the jack is no longer able to push the hammer up to hit the string which results in a dead note. Most of the time, with some long surgical tweezers, a long flat head screwdriver and some wood glue, I can carefully work some fresh glue up under the broken glue joint and then set the jack flange assembly back into it's correct position. And if I'm lucky, which I was today, the glue has dried enough that the note can be played by the time I reach that note during the tuning process. There are times when I have had to remove the entire action and take the jack flange assembly off the action rail to reglue and reposition the jack correctly.
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