Routine Maintenance

[Richard Brekne]

Oh heck..... there are tons of things to do that are worth while. Aside
from the easy stuff like cleaning the keybed and pedal area, keys,
action rails etc etc ad absurdum.. there is allways an action center or
two (grin) that is two loose or two tight, there are the some 250 +
action screws that generally need tightning, a bit of mating hammers to
strings allways makes a nice change for the better, a quick very basic
regulation can be appropriate. If nothing else a quick condition check
and report to the customer of needs for further maintainance.

This is one of my big sellers actually. I always sell an hour and a half
of my time for a basic tuning / service call. Thats my minimum and I
stick to it unless I have appointed a larger time slot previously. It
rarely takes me more then an hour to get the piano tuned so I always
have time for a bit of improvement elsewhere on the instrument. My
customers know that this is how I operate as I tell each new one about
this prior to finalizing an appointment, and after many years of doing
this, most folks who call do so exactly because of this. I hear very
often negative comments from new customers about the last guy who came
in and whipped out a 35 minute tuning, took 100 bucks, and didnt even
stay around long enough to make sure he put the moderator spring back
on... grin.

Martin Dubow wrote:

> I'm curious to know what  can be done as routine maintenance at the
> same time of the tuning. You know, nothing extremely time-consuming,
> but at the same time, giving the customer more than he expects
> and hopefully generating goodwill at the same time.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Martin

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway