old frosting spatula. OR, 'new' bushing cloth scraper.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about my job is the ability (necessity even, sometimes) to be creative with tools -- any kind of tools -- in order to complete any odd unique task efficiently. It has been said more than once that the first thing an organbuilder is likely to do with ANY newly acquired tool is to MODIFY IT somehow, either to make it 'work better', or to do something entirely apart from whatever it was intended to do, or otherwise anything that would immediately void its warranty. ;-) ;-) <lol> This method of 'looking at tools' also extends, of course, to things that weren't ever intended to be tools at all. :-)

There's little doubt this flexible spatula was intended for kitchen duty. By the time I got it (a couple decades ago, at least) it had already passed into somebody's garage instead, probably for a good while, since it was fully crusty-rusty dirty. It stayed that way for awhile after I got it until re-discovering it somewhere, wondering if I could use it as a tuning knife. Cleaned it up on the wire wheel and gave it a little sandpaper and oil on its handle to look a little better, then it turns out, found it is *not* a good tuning tool. (nice blade width but too flexible, and its balance is all off...) And back to the drawer-de-junque it went. :-)

THEN, just the other day, I found myself with the job of un-gluing and removing the worn out bushing cloth on an organ pedalboard (the keyboard the organist plays with their feet) so I could replace it. Without boring y'all with (more?) unnecessary detail, let's just say it's red felt strips glued inside oblong narrow holes making conventional scrapers, putty knives, or chisels cumbersome at best, as I soon found out, until I remembered I had this in the drawer...THEN -- suddenly, I had the **PERFECT TOOL FOR THE JOB**??!!!

Got the old felt stripped away in no time at all (well, comparatively) -- I LOVE it when things work out that way...!! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)