One of the common repair jobs performed on an aging piano during the piano tuning visit: bridle tape replacement. These tapes keep the hammer bridled to the action after a note is played and keeps the wippen from falling down if the action is taken out of the piano for repairs.

On an older piano in poor condition, its very common for a large number of bridle tapes to have broken (usually the tips have disintegrated over time). This can cause minor problems with key repetition and on some pianos the jack can get jammed behind the hammer butt (depends on the size of the parts or if other issues have occurred such as springs losing tension). While this issue can be overlooked by many piano tuner technicians (as many pianos play reasonably well with missing bridle tapes), replacing these tapes is an important step towards getting the piano performing at its best. The Leeds piano tuner has many spares in his piano tuner case.