---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Usually Dave I find that the improvement in tone thru some judicious voicing & shaping is what these pianos need most. Couple that with the cleaner feel of taking up loss motion & dialing in the let off & the improvement is usually noticeable to even casual players. The cleaning is all preventative stuff which doesn't take that long & most folks understand the value of that. But I know what you mean. Hey that's life in the piano biz. Merry Xmas Dale Tuned a medium-quality console that was 25 or 30 years old and had had minimal use. While tuning along, I noticed that it could use vacuuming and a light hammer filing, but not terribly. There was a bit too much lost motion, but not enough to bother most players. Several hammers weren't quite aligned to the center of the unisons, but were still striking all three strings. I'm sure the keys weren't perfectly level, nor the dip nicely uniform, and from its age and length of time without tuning, I'm sure all the flange screws needed tightening, along with plate screws and all other screws. Oh, and there were a few strings in the treble that maybe needed seating on the bridge or maybe their bridge pins tapped in (false beats). And I imagine that the let-off was a bit wide. But it played nicely and had a decent, acceptable tone and sustain. Nevertheless, I thought I should point out to the owner what work the piano could use in addition to tuning to put it in top shape. So I explained all the above-mentioned items, that it was 30 years old and no piano goes that long without needing at least some routine maintenance, and that it would cost a few hundred dollars to do a complete job. She replied, "What would I notice?" And you know, in all honesty, I had to reply, "Well, maybe not much." The tone might be a LITTLE rounder after hammer filing, or it might be too bright and need subsequent voicing down. The tone was pretty nice as it was. She MIGHT notice that the action was a tiny bit more responsive (no lost motion, closer let-off) IF she was a fairly advanced player, which she was not. But vacuuming, tightening plate and flange screws, seating strings or bridge pins, de-traveling "wandering" shanks, regulating dip . . . I doubt she or most average casual players would notice any change. (I already tuned it). Now, with much older pianos where the hammers are extremely worn and the action is extremely out of regulation, or when the hammers badly need voicing, often the difference after reconditioning is dramatic. And sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, that is, they might not notice this or that item, but all together, the reconditioning improves the sound and touch of the instrument. But in this case, I had a hard time selling the job to even myself. Whatta ya do in these cases? Just leave it? Wait until it's "pretty bad" before you work on it? Why should they spend $300 or more if the piano will feel and sound about the same as it did before? It doesn't increase the value all that much. It does prevent things from getting worse, I guess, but in this case, I think the piano would be about the same, regulation-wise, in 5 or even 10 years from now, with its very casual use, since it's been "about the same" for the LAST 5 or 10 years. --David Nereson, RPT ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/f5/1f/80/68/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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