Pounding tuning pins.

[Ron Nossaman]

>Unfortunately, it was her grandmothers piano so the woman is attached to it.  

This is about half of the problem right here. Grandma likely didn't have
the piano tuned three times in this lady's lifetime, so she's sure it's
been ruined, or at least is less a piano than it was. I've gotten a lot of
calls like this. People expect "new" to equate with "maintenance free". How
many times have you heard a new piano owner say "Why would a new piano need
so much tuning?", or "How could it need tuned already, it's brand new (two
years ago)" - followed by - "What's wrong with it"? Same thing for
rebuilds. Even when the rebuild is as good as anything I've seen or done,
and I know the rebuilder told the customer what to expect, it still happens
a lot. I expect other techs are getting complaints about tuning stability
on my rebuilds too, and for the same reasons.


>- anyway I told 
>her to be aware of the problem as we head into the heating season and see if 
>it improves as the humidity drops.

I doubt it. I would expect one more pitch raise after the heat is on before
you see it settle down much. This isn't all just new string stretching. As
Brian said, humidity is a major player too, so you should be taking
humidity readings to document the cause and effect for the customer. In
fact, I'd tell the customer to expect the pitch raise. That way, If it
proves necessary, you'll have credibility and if it doesn't prove
necessary, you'll have good news. You win either way. The piano could be
doing exactly what it should be doing under the circumstances, so you need
to try to define those circumstances for the customer and fix anything that
truly needs fixed. Meanwhile, the timing is sort of a crapshoot. I'd
probably offer to settle the coils, level the pins and strings and such
when I did the fall/winter tuning.   

>Lots - o - fires on this one to put out.  
>Doug Mahard

Yep, and you probably haven't seen them all yet.

Gun shy in Wichita

Ron N