Failed string splicing -- charge for time?

[Paul T Williams]

Hi John,

I think it was the right thing to try.  I personally don't like splicing, 
but can see it's benefits, especially if the piano is to be really used 
soon, not just little Sally's first year of piano lessons.  It's hard to 
have to put a string on when the customer is at such a distance.  I would 
have tried the same thing first as well. I don't think you did anything 
causing the knot to break. Just bad luck.   The mechanic comparison is 
right on, and I too understand him charging for something even if it 
didn't work.  My mechanic will do the same thing to try and save me a bit 
of dough ray me.

Good luck next time :>)

Paul




"John Formsma" <formsma at gmail.com> 
Sent by: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
04/18/2008 05:40 PM
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Re: Failed string splicing -- charge for time?






On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 9:43 AM, Paul T Williams <
pwilliams4 at unlnotes.unl.edu> wrote:

John, 

Do you charge a minimum fee for those few pianos that nothing can be done? 
Especially if far from home....  Does the Maytag man charge you when 
he/she comes and the dishwasher is shot and you'll have to buy another? 
You should by all means charge something for your efforts, otherwise, 
you're just cheating yourself! 

 Paul,

Yes, I do charge for service calls. I suppose my question is really about 
my judgment concerning the string splice attempts. Maybe another way to 
ask the question is this: Was it right for me to try splicing, and/or was 
it anything I did that might have caused the knot to break?   At this 
point, I don't think it was anything I did. However, I wanted to be fair 
to the customer. 

On the way home. I was trying to think of other examples where I would be 
the customer, and another person would be the technician. I thought of my 
mechanic... if he tried to fix something on my car that didn't work, I 
think I would be grateful for the attempt. However, I am a "fellow 
technician" in a sense, so I understand that kind of thing. :-)

-- 
JF 
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