Broken String

[Clyde Hollinger]

James,

Your request is not outlandish, but I would not consider it advisable.

You may end up having done an excellent job.  However, those of us who
have been in this business for a while know how something that appears so
simple on the surface has a way of not always turning out that way.  There
are also the many times I've seen work done by the handyman (or bad piano
tooners, for that matter) that exhibits poor craftsmanship.  The repair is
in that gray area where it's good enough to do the job, but to the
practiced eye or ear it's obviously substandard, and that can develop a
strong negative attitude in a good piano technician.

In one case I left the house with the determination never to go back.  The
customer had his own tuning hammer, and after I tuned the piano he thought
he could improve it, messed it up, then called me back and expected me to
retune the botched places free.  If the client alienates all the good
piano technicians, the only ones left are those who just care about the
money and don't even value your piano as much as you do.

Another client thought a particular repair looked easy and undertook to do
it himself.  The repair *was* easy, but in the process he damaged the
action to the tune of $300+.  Parting with the money was the hard part.
So to repeat myself, yes, you probably can do it, and no, I would not
advise it.

Regards,
Clyde Hollinger, RPT
Lititz, PA, USA

James Gammon wrote:

> Did I miss something?  Is this request unusually outlandish?  Did I
> somehow indicate that I wanted the string pre-tuned, or even thought
> that such a thing was possible?  I just happen to be a guy who likes
> to fiddle with stuff, and wouldn't mind the experience of putting the
> new string in myself.  My understanding is that a new string costs
> around $10, so unless this understanding is wrong, it's worth breaking
>
> another one (or two) to a tinkerer like myself to have the experience
> of re-stringing it. I know how to tune it to a unison with the
> other E3 string.  Perhaps I stand to do serious damage to the piano
> somehow?  If this is the case, by all means, I'll have a registered
> technician do it.
>
>    Confusedly,
>
>       jame