Halt Piano Work!

[David Love]

I think that was the right call.  I have done the same thing on similar
instruments on more than one occasion.  In my opinion, for a child starting
the piano, it is even more crucial that they begin on a well functioning
and decent sounding instrument.  No better way to insure that the child
doesn't continue than starting them out on a piece of crap.

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Farrell 
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Sent: 9/18/2003 3:13:30 AM 
Subject: Halt Piano Work!


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. 

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