FREE FALLING FALLBOARD

[james allen bickerton]

While tuning a Kimball Grand for a first-time customer, I immediately
realized that the piano was on average about 40 cents flat.  The piano
was manufactured in 1994, and the owner claimed that the piano had been
tuned within the last 12 months.  The owner also expressed
dissatisfaction with her previous technician, claiming that the tech,
while tuning her piano, had removed the fallboard, and while in the
process, had broken the slow-fall mechanism on the fallboard.  I have
several questions:
  1.  How difficult is it to repair the fallboard?
  2.  When confronted with a piano requiring a pitch raise, and the
owner refuses to pay charges beyond a standard tuning fee, do you (a)
refuse to do the work, (b) tune the piano at current pitch  (c) spend
the extra time and do the job right for the standard fee?
  3.  How does one handle customers when they speak ill of other piano
techs, especially when it is obvious that the previous work was
performed poorly?

                                    JIM