Plastic elbow dilemma SOLVED!

[Richard Brekne]

Bill... interesting take on this... and of course there are those whose
motivations are not exactly honorable. But when you characterize all those
responses from techs who view the situation other then you do as in the below
paragraph, then you are doing these techs an injustice. If you think its ok to
replace a few elbows in such a piano, and wait until more need changing before
doing more, then fine. As long as you do good work, no reasonable tech is going
to have a problem with that. But the flip side should be true as well. These
plastice elbows are a known problem, and waaayyyy to many techs have waaaaayyyy
to often been caught in a less then enjoyable situation by accepting such a job.
I personally share their view, and in fact I go a bit farther an choose not to
work on either bird cage pianos or drop actions. There are plenty of techs around
who actually enjoy working on the drop action, and many of these do real nice
work. So why should I not recommend a customer to one of these who are more
motivated for that kind of job ??.. I have more then enough work of the sort I
enjoy best and part of that work is actually spreading some of this kind of
excess around to other techs I know will do good work. That much I can do for
these owners. To each his own my freind... there is plenty to go around and no
harm in having an honest opinion, as long as you do honest work.

Richard Brekne
I.C.P.T.G.  N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway

BSimon999@AOL.COM wrote:

> Plastic elbow dilemma? Get a grip.
>
> A broken elbow takes only a minute to replace with a 22 cent part.  Alas,
> even a full set replacement does not provide enough money for a full
> retirement.  The real dilemma is how to characterize the various responses
> ---   arrogant, disdainful, despotic, pretentious, pompous, condescending...
> it is so hard to choose, I need a thesaurus.
>
> <<You would be better off  spending time with a more reasonable customer...>>
>
> <<I made it quite clear that when I started to tune that if more than three
> additional  elbows broke, I would end the tuning right there and would charge
> for my time, condeming  the piano as untunable until the elbows were
> replaced.>>
>
> <<I would insist on replacing all the elbows, or not doing the job.  >>
>
> You guys would love the con artist we currently have running around Phoenix.
> I just saw his most recent work. He would not tune a spinet piano until it
> was properly repaired, so he pulled the keys (threw the keybed felts and
> punchings away), pulled the action and took all the whippens off so he could
> replace 70+ perfectly good Vagias elbows and a few old broken plastic
> originals with wood ones ( nice looking job= 20 hours at $30.00 an hour -
> didn't put the whippens back on the rail ), then he left everything apart in
> a heap, including the keys, action, and case parts, until the nice little
> Hispanic lady (no English) could come up with more money to proceed, because
> the $650.00 she had already paid him had by this point been exhausted. He
> figures another $800.00 or so to finish the action and keybed work and THEN
> he will  tune it. He is truly an ARTISTE!
>
> DILEMMA  SOLUTION---For those technicians who cannot bring themselves to
> replace a few elbows. Vet the customers when they call, "pre-qualify" them so
> that you NEVER go out to tune anything but a Steinway  that is less than 2
> cents flat! That should end the tiresome and laborious task of telling
> customers that their piano is crap, and basically so are they unless they
> pony up and pay you as much as you want, when you want, to do what you want.
>
> AND - FOR A STERLING  EXCEPTION;
>
> My hat is off to Mr. Keith McGavern for his  sympathetic and humane response;
>
> <<What I'd do.  -  Since you have advised her about complete replacement,
> honor what she asks you to do, charge accordingly, and be thankful for the
> opportunity to serve
> yet another customer.   Keith McGavern. >>
>
> That's the way to go.
>
> Respectfully,
> Bill Simon
> Phoenix