"Deal of the Century" X 2

[Dave Nereson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan" <tune4u@earthlink.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 6:11 PM
Subject: "Deal of the Century" X 2


<<. . . Cable spinet. 1966, no plastic action parts.
 Actually in good shape, hammers barely dented, felts soft, pretty clean.
. . . . 
Almost 50 cents flat, on average. Regulation pretty good. No mechanical
problems.
. . . . 
So I ask: "What did you pay for the piano?" "Oh," she says, "We got a
good deal. They wanted $1,500 for it but we talked them down to a
thousand." I make Nooooo comment other than "Hmm."
Alan R. Barnard
Salem, MO>>

    That's not such a bad deal.  For a piano with all its essential components intact, all notes working, and re-whateverable to make into a "decent" instrument, $1000 is pretty much the minimum a person's gotta pay these days, except for dealers & rebuilders that can afford to buy several at a time wholesale.  Even then, $800 or so is about the lowest I see around here, for spinets and consoles.

<<Pitch raise with TuneLab and fine tune with two passes ... Wild strings
galore ... "Wahwahwahwaaaah" all over the piano. Top octave and a half
are racous, shrill, whiny, yucko.>>

    That stuff can be fixed or at least much improved, probably, by seating bridge pins and/or strings, string leveling, mating hammers to strings, softening the hammers, checking for evenness of let-off, fine tuning and voicing.  It won't be a "fine" instrument, but for $1K plus your labor, what do they expect?  It'll be a lot better. 
    --David Nereson, RPT, Denver