Over the years I’ve learned that there are always surprises to be found when opening up a piano.  This is especially true when something isn’t working correctly.  It can be an interesting investigation to find the cause of a problem.  Commonly I find change, paper clips, pencils (really?  how in the world does that get under the keys??) toys and so on.  When I opened up this particular piano, I could see that the tops of the jacks, a part that transmits motion, were missing.  It is unusual though not uncommon to have one break off.  Two next to each other is more unusual.  After removing the action and the associated assembly I found that in fact they were not broken, but had been chewed off by mice!  There was a neat pile of wood shavings on the key bed as evidence.  They had taken a full inch off each one!

Getting replacement parts was more difficult as the design is rather unique and I had to do some detective work to find some, but hey, that’s part of the fun!