The project continues...

Day 56.

I woke up in a made panic this morning thinking it was 8:45. I'd rushed to have a shower and a shave and then I looked at my phone. 8:05. I'd woken up 45 minutes early. Needless to say I wasn't happy! 

When I finally went to work the first thing I did was print off some music that Mum had sent me. Then I returned to yesterday's project as I waxed the valves into place, which allowed us to properly test the keyboard. However, this flagged up new problems - the keys were still noisy, which meant the felt underneath the keyboard needed replacing. We applied WD40 to the rod that holds the keys in place and, after waiting a bit, the rod finally moved!I took the keys out and removed the old felt. Some of the body underneath had come unstuck so I glued it back on, leaving it to dry while I cut the new felt. Claudio then called me over to demonstrate an accordion. Again! My next move was to glue the new felt on before it was time to go to lunch.

I didn't go to the gelateria as the weather as beginning to close in.

Back at work after lunch and, with torrential rain setting in, I set about putting the keys back in place. It was actually easier than I thiught! Once they were in place I had to remove the one on the end again and file down the edge of the key & body as they were rubbing together and squeaking. I then had to remove most of the keys again to grease the squeaky springs under a couple of them. In the end I took them all out as Claudio suggested I should polish them all. 

We took all the white keys through to the polishing machine, which Claudio demonstrated as I'd never used it before. I began polishing them and it was going so well, until one key got caught on the wrong side and flew to the ground, causing part of it to come unstuck (Stefano later glued it back together). I polished all of the white keys; I'll do the black ones tomorrow I imagine. The last thing I did before home time was to help Claudio glue some bellows back together.

After an hour at home Kleidi, Erica and I went to Liros, a very smart pizzeria/restaurant. I had a pizza topped with cherry tomatoes, capers, onions, tuna and anchovies. It was delicious! Next Thursday a large group of us are going to Liros with Stephanie.

I finished the day by speaking to Stephanie on Skype.

Arrivederci x