Bob, We have had the Kawai lease program here at IWU for seven years. I've only been at IWU for five years, but *I* was the Kawai dealer's technician before that. The is how things worked at first: The pianos were delivered and then I went in and prepped them. The IWU technician did the routine tuning. If anything came up technically, I went in and took care of it. Since becoming IWU's technician, I just go ahead and prep the pianos when they come in because the Kawai dealer's new technicians either doesn't know how to prep them or doesn't realise it needs to be done. Voicing and seating strings are an absolute must--they've been coming in sounding like they have granite hammers--but that's easily controlled. The pianos have been relatively trouble free. The only problems I've en- countered have been a case of front pins that were not driven down far enough (in an upright) and a couple grands came in needing damper regulation. The only down side is the first few tunings (new pianos!) which is still much better that trying to make old beaters sound good. If you're interested in my recipe for prepping Kawais includes, just let me know. Barbara Richmond Illinois Wesleyan University Bloomington, Illinois berich@heartland.bradley.edu
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC