Hi Terry. Wim has a good point here. I think the bottom line is just be real careful, and avoid these situations as much as possible. I'm learning about this the hard way also. This Thursday I have an appointment with a little eastern European cupid doll. I replaced/reglued about 20 ivory pieces that were missing from her keyboard. I told her that the keyboard was in really bad shape and recommended complete replacement of the keytops. It was obvious that previous repairs had been made - someone glued the thin ivory down to the wooden key and you can see the dark wood through the ivory on these repairs - looks horrible. The keys I repaired at least are whitish - they look a lot better than the others. Anyway I told her that I would simply reattach the ivory on the keys that it had fallen off of. I would not be restoring the ivory in any other way. I would not be fixing the previous poor repairs. I even buffed the set at no charge - that helped a bit. I put that keyboard into her piano about a month ago. Now she calls and says "some of the keys are brown - you need to come and look what I mean - you need to fix the ivory". So I think I know what is coming - no matter how well I explained that her ivory was not salvagable, and that I would only fix the few that were falling off, and that the result would be spotty - different colors, etc. - in appearance, I just know that she is not happy now because her ivory keyboard does not look like new. We'll see what happens. I'll report back. But I think that I am learning that you just have to say "NO" to some repairs. (I was especially reluctant to say no in this situation because I believe she is serious about completely rebuilding the piano at some point in the future - and I cannot afford to loose a potential job like that at this point - or maybe I can, Hmmmmm?) Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "pianolover 88" <pianolover88@hotmail.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 12:32 AM Subject: Re: termites/moths/vermin? >From: Wimblees@AOL.COM The customer thinks for $500 the piano will be >perfect. >Wim Wim, Actually, I made it clear to the customer that the work done as quoted will at least get the piano in decent playing order, FAR from "like new", or "perfect". Basically, All I've done, or intend to do at this point is exactly what I said I'd do; replace the worst damaged hammers (6 or 7), file and shape the rest, replace ONLY the flat treble dampers, tighten any loose screws. I've done this type of job many times, so i know how much time is involved. Then I'l return the action, make sure the hammers are aligned to the strings, then pitch & tune away! Terry _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
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