List, About a year ago, I entered the time in my tuning career where I started doing the little extra things for customers, especially if their pianos didn't need much tuning. If there is time, I like to regulate pedals, letoff, lost motion, minor voicing - etc... all for no extra charge if I don't need to spend much time on the tuning. Job satisfaction about triples when these opportunities arise. However, I find that many of these "extras" amount to larger problems because of the incompleteness of the jobs such as correcting excessive lost motion in a piano that hasn't been serviced for 5 years. I don't like the feel of excessive lost motion NOR the outcome of the lack of keydip after correcting excessive lost motion. The outcome leads to having to do more regulation, new pads and more... - jobs that many customers can't afford. (I live in rural MN - farmers are half of my customer base.) Today I serviced a piano that barely needed tuning, but had excessive lost motion. I chose not to correct it for the very reasons described above. I am "lost" with this topic. Bad, I know. Two questions: 1. Which do you prefer on a 30+ year-old piano that has never been regulated - excessive lost motion or incorrect keydip (assuming the customer will not pay for anything but a tuning AND I don't want any WISEGUYS here.) 2. What are your thoughts when you come across this type of situaton? I'm guessing that many of you would ignore it. Maybe some of you encounter the same thing? Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Jay Mercier ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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