Rob,
You sure did go through a lot. I hope it proves to be worth it!
Greg Newell
P.S. after a day like that ... what'r you doin up at this hour?
At 03:39 AM 6/2/2002, you wrote:
>Today was a very tiring day...
>
>Several days ago I received a phone call from a local resident. His name
>was Jose, and in his crude English I understood him to say that he had a
>piano in his garage and he wanted to give it away. "Is it a grand piano
>or an upright piano?" I asked. Having dealt with so many "free" junk
>pianos, I was very skeptical. He indicated that it was a grand but didn't
>know much about it. I asked him if he knew what brand. He said that it
>was a Conover. He could not give me any additional information.
>
>I am rather fond of the Conover model "88". It is a well built piano and
>closely resembles the Mason & Hamlin "A" in multiple aspects. They have
>an excellent tone with a strong bass. I was excited at the thought of
>possibly getting a free Conover "88". When I arrived I was overjoyed to
>learn that it was indeed a model "88". Then the bomb fell. He wasn't
>looking for someone to give the piano to. He wanted to give away "the
>parts". Huh?????? As it turned out he was the leader of a salsa
>band. What he really wanted was to gut the piano of the action and plate
>and then install a digital keyboard in the case. His intent was to have a
>"grand piano look" on the stage yet something that could be easily broken
>down to move to the next gig. Sheesh! Here was this beautiful gem of a
>piano, certainly worthy of restoration, and all he wanted was to butcher
>it so that he could have a "grand piano look"! I hesitated for a moment
>trying to think of something to say. In desperation all I could come up
>with was, "I think that there could be other pianos more suited for your
>needs. Let me see if I can come up with a solution for you." Then half
>way down the driveway it hit me. I have another client, "Richard", who
>lives on the other side of town.
>
>Richard is a 71 year old jazz musician who recently moved to Las Vegas
>from the Bay area. He brought an old Wurlitzer grand with him which
>quickly deteriorated in the dry desert. When he called me to come and
>take a look at it the pins were so loose that you could practically turn
>them by hand. The rest of the piano reflected similar conditions,
>although the case did look fairly decent. Richard needed a playable piano
>but had very little money to spend on one. I admittedly felt a bit sorry
>for him, and I told him that I would keep an eye out for a decent cheap
>piano.
>
>So the connection was there; Jose needed a stage prop but had a beautiful
>Conover that I wanted, and Richard had a useless grand that needed to be
>disposed. I presented the idea to Jose. He was hesitant but agreed to
>look at the Wurlitzer. On my way home I called Richard. He agreed to the
>arrangement but reiterated his need for a playable piano. I agreed that I
>would find him one if he would be a little patient. Next I approached the
>dealer that I do PianoDisc work for. I was told that "there might be
>something in the warehouse that could be salvaged". I took the chance.
>
>I arranged a time for Jose' to look at Richard's piano the next morning.
>Then another problem. The following morning Richard calls me and says he
>forgot that he had an appointment. But Jose was on his way, and I had no
>way to change the time! Richard agreed to leave the key with the
>management of his apartment. So Jose arrives... and the manager is
>gone! Needless to say this did not help my relations department, and
>Jose' was becoming irritated. Through another series of events we
>rearranged a meeting later in the day. It finally worked, and Jose viewed
>the piano. He seemed very unenthusiastic, and I pretty much gave up on
>the effort. Then to my total shock, Jose calls me at 7:30 that evening
>saying that he wanted the piano! The catch of course was that he wanted
>$500.00, the amount that he supposedly paid for the Conover, (so he
>says). I agreed.
>
>So here's how it works: In order to get the Conver "88" I had to provide
>Jose a substitute piano. To do this I needed Richard's Wurlitzer. But in
>order to get the Wurlitzer I needed to get Richard a playable piano from
>the music dealer's used stash in the warehouse. Then I would have to make
>Richard's new piano playable and gut the plate and action out of his old
>one. Following that I would have to rent a trailer to move it to Jose's
>house. Then I would need to load up the Conover to take it to my house,
>all before any parties involved had the chance to change their mind!
>
>I consulted Alan Meyer, my partner with whom I install PianoDiscs. He
>will be joining me on the rebuilding shop venture and ultimately helping
>in the restoration job of the Conover 88 in question. Early this morning
>I rented the trailer and met Alan at Richard's house. In his living room
>we completely gutted the Wurlitzer, plate, action, strings and all. This
>of course took two hours longer than expected, and I would have to inform
>Jose that we would be late. Naturally I lost the paper with the phone
>number, so now I risked irritating the fragile agreement. We continued
>the dissection of the Wurlitzer. As we loaded it up we discovered that
>the piano would barely clear the roof of the trailer. We also loaded up
>the plate which we now needed to find a place to ditch. Suddenly I found
>Jose's number. I called him and he was cool so off we went.
>
>We arrived at Jose's house and unloaded the now extremely light Wurlitzer
>case with ease and prepared to load up the Conover. Surprise! Jose had
>already made an effort to remove the plate of the Conover and had loosened
>and/or removed all the plate bolts and screws... under full tension! We
>quickly locked them all down again with no further incident. After
>getting the massively heavy beast on the skid board, however, (he had it
>laying on bare concrete), it made some pretty awful creaking sounds, so we
>stopped and took the tension off the plate. Next we rolled it out to the
>trailer only to discover that it was too darn tall to fit
>inside! Thinking creatively we decided to heave the massive thing into
>the back of Alan's pick up. I won't go into the details on how we did
>this, but fair it said that it was not fun.
>
>To complicate matters Alan had to be at the Golden Gate casino by 4:00 for
>a tuning gig involving a recording, and it was getting late. We carefully
>and slowly made our way to my house. Alan had to get to the Golden gate
>immediately, only this huge beast was on his little pick-up. We quickly
>unhitched the trailer from MY truck so that he could use it to get to his
>gig. In the meantime I had to move a mountain of stuff in my garage to
>make room for the piano. Two and a half hours later Alan returned. To
>get the piano off the truck we needed to stack a huge pile of plywood up
>to build a ramp, (I live in a rural area and there are no curbs to back up
>to). Amazingly we managed to unload the thing and get it in the
>garage. Whew!!!!!!!!! What you have to go through to get an unplayable
>piano to rebuild! Now I still have to get Richard a piano which I will
>have to make playable without charge to him!
>
>Oh, I still have a Wurlitzer plate to get rid of.
>
>
>Rob Goodale, RPT
>Las Vegas, NV
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Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net
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