"Seasoned For Destination"

[Garret Traylor]

Patrick,

I don't think you will find a failure rate any higher or lower with
different brands under the same circumstances (quality, age, overall,
condition, environment).  If the piano were moved to Tokyo to Sapporo Japan,
we would find the same issues.  It's the weather (humidity and temperature)
not the Market or Geography.  Go to Google Maps and zoom out to see the
world and then research Hadley Cells in Wikipedia.  The answer: Dampp-Chaser
curs a lot of ills.  Sorry your customer did not buy into the concept of
saving their piano.  Of course a poor or misleading "Rebuild" is another
issue too.

Kindest Regards,

Garret 

---

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of J Patrick Draine
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 8:18 AM
To: Pianotech List
Subject: Re: "Seasoned For Destination"

 

Bruce,

If indeed your environment is "very kind" you may not have much to worry
about. 

What do I see in Billerica, MA, about 25 miles inland? Soundboards that
develop cracks during their first winter stateside. Very low pin torque.

One customer bought a Yamaha C5 that was rebuilt by one of the import
outfits, in TN or KY I think. Pin torque was monstrous in July just after he
bought it; bridges and soundboard developed cracks as soon as the heat came
on in the Fall, and pinblock torque took a sudden dive.

These pianos were not outfitted with Dampp-Chaser systems, despite my
warnings to the proud new owners.

Are some of the grey market pianos OK? Yes, but the failure rate is
unacceptably high.

Patrick Draine

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 5:07 AM, Bruce Browning - The Piano Tuner
<justpianos at our.net.au> wrote:

David,
With respect to the "grey market" pianos, people on this list keep saying
"coming apart", or "falling apart". Where are the specifics, as in my 10 -
12 years of servicing these in this country I have only seen minor
problems which can easily be rectified, such as well worn key bushings,
and the inevitable hammer butt loops (and aren't these problems common to
locally supplied models as well?). Admittedly the environment I work in is
very kind, but what should we be looking for? 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080912/5d3018c2/attachment.html