Replacing valves? Read this first!

[david robertson]

The glue that you use to stick soles to your shoes

Is a gem of adhesive modernity.

It may not be sexy, but it's tough and it's flexy -

And the sole sticks from here to eternity.

But what's good for shoes becomes terrible news

When it's used on the valves of a 'tina.

Whenever I find it, I eff it and blind it

(And sometimes add something obscener!)

For though it's tenacious and most efficacious,

Restorers have no cause to thank it -

Though we scrape and we scour for hour after hour,

It still sticks like sh** to a blanket!

[Anglo-Irishman]

Reminds me of how Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) defined poetry:

"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expresst."

[Theo]

Oh yes so true, I see this far too often.  My personal pet peeve with inexpertly replaced valves is when the "repairer" removes the old valves without replacing the old glue. As a result the glued end of the valves sits on a little hill of old glue (sometimes more thin one layer) and its hared than it should be for the valve to lie perfectly flat.

 

Sorry I can't express this so poetically.  Dave - please feel free to write a second verse!

[david robertson]

Love to oblige, Theo, but I'm creatively drained. I may have to lie in a darkened room for a day or two...