SPINET OUT OF CONTROL

[james allen bickerton]

Les Smith wrote:
>
> 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!!!
> >
LES,
  Thanks for the words of wisdom.  I missed your piece about "walking
away" when you feel it isn't worth the effort.  And your right - it was
due to my own ignorance that I got into the situation, but I tell you
what, I few dollars lighter and a pound of wisdom heavier, I won't
repeat that mistake again.