Lovely birdcage - what to do?

[Dean May]

Terry

Just think of it as a great opportunity to toot your own horn to the
customer. I tell customers in such situations that pitch raises take a
lot more work, especially if you don't know what you are doing. But I
have developed a technique that works really well and I have hundreds,
yea, even thousands of them in my career.

Dean
Dean May             cell 812.239.3359
PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272
Terre Haute IN  47802


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Farrell
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 7:48 AM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: Lovely birdcage - what to do?

Who the heck are these "techs" (or rather, "tooners") that suggest to
leave 
the pitch where it is. I run across so many pianos that are a semi tone
flat 
and the owner is shocked when I suggest that we raise to standard pitch 
because all the other tooners said it could not be done.

Pitch raise the darn thing to A440 and be done with it. You might want
to 
yank a few treble and bass strings up there first just to be sure, but I

pitch raise 100 year old uprights to standard pitch all the time.
Haven't 
had one explode on me yet. If this were one of those scantily built 
150-year-old English minimum-plate birdcages, I think there might be
some 
justification for concern (I'd likely warn the customer that the piano
might 
fold up in half), but I'd still be willing to try it if the owner wanted
to 
try to get it up to standard pitch. However, this is a monster heavily
built 
German piano from the 20th Century. IMHO if they want it at A440 (and
that 
would be my recommendation to the owner), put it there for them.

And everything looks original to me also. REAL CLEAN - you bet, but all 
original. Very pretty piano.

What's it worth? Its value is the case and the amazing fact that there 
really is a piano within. Someone will be willing to pay something for
that. 
Hard to say for sure what one could get for it - because the buyer will
be 
that person that takes one look at it and falls in love with it - but I 
would guess that the owner could get somewhere between $1K and $2K -
maybe 
more if the right person were to see it.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
> You think this piano could be brought up to 440, perhaps in stages, 
> without
> any problems? I was so afraid to do a pitch raise on this thing
because of
> what other local techs have advised that I never even thought that
perhaps
> the added tension would improve the pin tightness. Worth a try.>
> -- Geoff Sykes
> -- Assoc. Los Angeles 


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