If you can't stand pure venting, push delete now. Venting follows: Tuned/serviced a piano that was new to me. 1890 Kimball 5' 7" grand. Lady made appt. and told me enthusiastically that it had recently been COMPLETELY redone inside. The work was done my a local RPT, member of the guild. This is the third "completely redone" piano of his I have run across. It was consistent with the others I have seen. (One lady called me to inspect his work because she feared it was substandard - concurred with her.) He advertises in the Yellow Pages as being an RPT and member of the PTG. I charged the lady $245 to tune this Kimball grand..........and fix the keys that were not playing.............and fix the dampers that would not quit playing, etc., etc. The first thing, and the thing that buggs me the most, is that this lady had the clear understanding that her piano was COMPLETELY REBUILT. I specifically asked her whether the tech gave her a range of options for improving her piano, and perhaps she chose to do limited work because of financial constraints or just didn't want to spend a bundle on that piano. She said no. Her understanding was that there was nothing else to improve on this piano. Bass strings were replaced with supply-house type strings. Forward and rear windings ended as much as 3/4" off from its corresponding unison. Common was about 3/8" off. Coils were all over the place - loose, and ranged from a good 1/4" off plate to jammed into plate with a tight coil. Size-larger tuning pins were all different heights. Hammers were replaced. Shanks sticking out back side of hammer (looked like they were chewed off). No trimming, no surfacing/filing (they had the cupped surface on top), to tapering, no tail shaping. He had to have done the boring (or maybe his 6 year-old great-grandson). Hammers were at all angles. Any one hammer was off being straight on several planes (it's hard to even describe how crooked they were - strings were not being hit straight on by the hammer at all - that is the ones that were being hit). Hammers were so mis-aligned many strings were not being struck by respective hammer. About a dozen notes were not playing because hammer tails were dragging on backcheck. Many hammers were blocking against string because they never went through letoff. The end of hammer travel on many notes was terminated not by letoff, but because letoff was like 1/2" below string and the drop adjustment went almost up to the string such that the rep lever carried the hammer the rest of the way. Keys were rebushed (front rail only) and recovered and new felt was on keyframe. The keys were about as unlevel and crooked (leaning) and poorly spaced as ANY old upright I have ever seen (you know the ones with mouse-eaten felts). About a half dozen dampers were non-functional. He replaced the felt on them with the supply-house set for uprights. Felt at all angles and positions on the damper heads. Wires that looked like pretzels. I have never bent a set of damper wires. I was kinda shy about even trying to fix them, but upon inspection, they looked like a forest of trees where the wind blows hard from one predominant direction. Some of the screws in the back action were missing so it appeared he took the straight wire and bent the last 3/8" or so a bit and then jammed the crooked wire into the little wooden block to hold it there (what is it called??? the little block on the back action that the damper wire goes into). I started by removing the dampers and wires and making them as perfectly straight as I could. I put them back in and waaalaa, they worked fine, just like that. One of the dampers that was slow - I didn't even want to touch it - appeared to be held in its block with chewed gum. He charged her $2,000. All of the work should be completely redone. Maybe the back rail cloth on the action frame would be OK. I could go on. I think you get the picture. I was sooooo happy to find the lady had a wonderful sense of humor. At one point she asked me if I was going to shoot it. Just curious, are we supposed to report a clown like this to somebody at PTG? This dude is an embarrassment to all members of PTG. Terry Farrell
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