Halt Piano Work!

[Farrell]

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I had a new experience yesterday. I refused to work on a piano because =
of its deterioration status.

Went to appt. to pitch raise, tune and fix a couple keys on a Sohmer =
console that was recently purchased used for $250. Piano was about 40 =
years old. Lady told me last owner had stored it in garage for years. =
Several keys were sticking.

Open piano and saw 1/4-inch pinblock/frame separation. Action & keys =
seems sluggish and keys way-unlevel. Dampers oinking like they were =
being run over slooooowly by a steamroller. Otherwise, piano seemed to =
be in one piece. Told lady between pinblock, 150-cent pitch raise, =
tuning, and minor action work, she would be looking easily at $500-plus. =
I recommended that she replace the piano.=20

She said "child is only 4 yo, surely we can just put $200 into it so he =
can plunk on it to see if he takes to piano. If he does well, I'll be =
happy to buy him a new piano." I told her piano teachers tell me that =
the best way to make sure a child fails is to provide him a =
poor-performing piano. But OK, we can tune it at pitch and try and free =
up the keys/action for $200.

I should mention that all this is occurring in a brand new $500K house =
in a brand new subdivision with a brand new Lexus SUV in driveway and =
piano is in toy room with about $5K worth of toy trains, planes and =
automobiles scattered about........

Got to work, freed up a couple jacks, etc. in action, then started on =
sticking keys. Found that the key pins were rusty at the key balance =
hole. Key buttons started falling off. Key bushings started falling out. =
Several of the keys had to be pried off the balance rail pin they were =
so corroded to it. I told her that she needed the pins replaced and =
without doing that, I was forced to do the improper fix of =
over-enlarging the key balance rail hole. I recommended to her that she =
replace the piano. She said "just do $200 worth of work - I'm sure it =
will be just fine."

After mangling a couple keys and seeing that they still did not work, I =
said to myself: "Self, this is BS. You need to halt work on this piano." =
Put piano back together, packed up my toys, and told the lady that she =
needed over $500 worth of work in the keys alone just to make them work, =
and that she would still have a piano with a slow action, a separated =
pinblock, and oinking dampers. I told her that it was not possible to =
repair this piano at any reasonable cost and that I was not willing to =
attempt to do so.

I thought for sure she was just going to hit the roof and call me bad =
names, etc. (because she was so insistent that we could "make the piano =
good enough"). But she was very understanding and thanked me profusely =
for my honesty. I was even willing to not charge her because I wanted it =
to be clear that my intentions were genuine. She offered and paid me my =
minimum fee. (Her son just started lessons with a teacher/client of mine =
and I also tune for many of her other students.) We had a good talk =
about finding a replacement piano, Larry Fine, etc., etc.

What I thought had developed into the service call from hell, in the end =
turned out to be OK after all. This was one of those pianos - like a =
termite riddled piano - that just gets worse and worse the further you =
dig into it.

Terry Farrell
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