SPINET OUT OF CONTROL

[Les Smith]

Hi, Jim.

My sincere sympathies. Consider this a learning experience. First,
when you walk in on a tuning, before you touch the instrument, ask
the owner of he is having any problems, action or otherwise, that
are going to need attention. If he was no, he just wants it tuned,
check it our yourself, anyway. You want to discover if any problems
exist BEFORE you start tuning, because if you bring a problem to the
attention of the owner-that he wasn't previously aware of--AFTER you
have tuned the instrument, he will likely blame the problem on YOU!
"Gee, Jim. I never had a problem with that note until you tuned the
piano"

If you had been aware of the problem before you started tuning the
piano, either because the owner brought it to your attention, or be-
cause you brought it to his, you could have charged him, or at least
given him an estimate as to what it would have cost to remove the ac-
tion and corrected the problem. If he had said "NO" to the expense,
he still might have let you tune the and let the note go unrepaired.
 (I never play that note anyways!). Or if he said No to the repair
and didn't want you tune it, you might have at least saved youself
getting into the situation in which you found yourself. After in-
vesting all that time tuning a real "piece of crappola" piano, he
MIGHT not have paid you had you not been willing to fix the note.
You really had no choice to do what you did. HOWEVER sometimes a
slipped jack pin can be pushed back into place with patience and a
thin bladed tool, if the pin itself isn't bent too badly. If you
do this repair, DON'T charge for it and don't guarantee it, be-
cause chances are that the bushings are shot and the pin will slip
out again.

Lastly, as I mentioned in an earlier post that drew some attention,
the best way to remove the action on one of those old junker spinets,
is to let some other tech do it rather than you. In other words there
are some situations where you are far better off just walking wawy from
the job and moving on to something more worthwhile, rather than allow-
ing a situation to develop, like the one you did. Sorry, but what hap-
pened was esentially your own fault. No problem there, we all make mis-
takes. Consider this a learning experience. Next time try to handle the
situation as I explained above. And remember, sometimes when you walk in
on a bad situation just waiting to happen, it OK to just say NO and move
on. I've done it many times, over the years. Primarily because of exper-
iences like yours.

Better luck NEXT TIME! :)

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net

On Sun, 23 Mar 1997, james allen bickerton wrote:

> I performed a Pitch Raise/Tuning on an old Wurlitzer Spinet (1969).  It
> took about 3 hours and was difficult at best because the piano was very
> unstable (probably due to not being tuned in years), and when trying to
> fine tune a string, it would jump from sharp to flat (i.e. the tuning
> pins were sloppy).
>   Satisfied that I had performed the tuning to the best of my ability, I
> promptly wrote out my standard Pitch Raise bill ($90.00), when the owner
> informed me that "one of the keys was sticking."  Sure enough, one of
> the keys was sluggish (something I didn't notice during the tuning."
>   While peering through the action at the offensive key, I notice that
> the jack was offset, and while playing the key, I realized that the
> broken/misplaced jack was the culprit.
>   Then I did something REALLY STUPID.  I took the action out of the
> piano.  Sure enough, the pin holding the jack in the whippen had come
> loose, and securing the pin was easy.  What wasn't easy was putting the
> action back in, and REGULATING IT!  Two days later, and a broken key
> (from screwing down a sticker screw too tight), I finally had the piano
> adjusted close enough to where it played as well as it did before.
>   MY QUESTION IS THIS - when working on a piano that is worth $200 tops,
> where do you draw the line when it comes to repair work?  I mean, it
> seems to me that there is an element of risk involved when working on a
> piano that is close to junk quality.
>   In time and money, I lost big time on this one!!!
>