Help for a Heinzman grand

[Ron Nossaman]

At 06:47 PM 01/25/2000 -0500, you wrote: 
>
> I was tuning a older Heinzmann grand when a string popped in the treble
> (notice that I didn't say I broke the string).  The piano is equipped with a
> agraffe bridge in the treble.  There is no regular agraffe, but the bar has
> tiny holes through it.  I cannot find the opening on the back side of the bar
> to thread the new string through.  One cannot see the holes from the top of
> the piano.  Must I pull the action and thread it through from underneath or
> is there a simpler solution.  I hope not, as it's a rickety old piano and
> pulling the action would be a chore.
>  
> Maybe some of our Canadian friends can help as the piano is labeled, "The
> Steinway of Canada."
> Thanks for any help.
>  
> Phil Ryan



Wow Phil, if the action's too rickety to pull, how is it that the piano's even
worth the price of the service call?

Sorry, just trying to add a little perspective. If you can't feed the string
back through any other way, issue the disclaimer to the customer about the
inadvisability of wasting a lot of money on cosmetics for the corpse and do
what you have to do to escape with your life. If that involves pulling the
action and spending the next two days patching the ghost back together at a
greater expense than the piano will ever be worth, then that's the price,
whoever ends up paying for it. Nothing will get a customer's (or a
technician's) attention faster than a rapidly escalating bill for the work
required to try to get a piano back to the approximate and precarious state of
dilapidation it was in before the service was attempted. It's an educational
process, and someone has to pay for the education. I sincerely hope it's not
you.

When it's all over and done, put this experience in the "Here Be Monsters" area
of your piano service map and refer to it regularly, lest you ever decide that
the next similar job you are contemplating accepting appears to be a simple and
harmless little thing. 

"There comes a time in every man's life when he must take the bull by the tail
and face the situation".
---------  W. C. Fields  ---------

Ron N