Charles, A short story. One of the very first "for pay" tuning jobs I ever did (app. 25 yrs. ago) was for a piano teacher who was involved in a theatre company I was also in. She knew I was still basically learning but I'd done the theatre's piano and it sounded OK, so she was trying to help me out. Well, you guessed it. A string broke while tuning! And I hadn't gotten any wire or the tools needed to use it, yet. She had a student coming later that day, so I spent a good bit of time calling all over the D.C./ Baltimore area trying to find a tech to come out and replace the string. I eventually did but needless to say, I didn't make much money on that job. And along the way, I got a lecture from a tuner who in no uncertain terms, told me that I shouldn't have been out tuning until I had the necessary tools and knowledge to repair minor things that can come up in a normal tuning. I ordered a good supply of piano wire and the tools the next day. :-) >One motivation for my question is that Randy Potter, in his course, >advises his students not to buy stuff until you need it. However, with >stringing, it seems that either you can offer that service or you can't. I >imagine if you say to a customer, "I'll come back in a week with a string" >then you've lost the job, or at least made yourself look bad. So I'm >trying to determine what I would need, without buying too much stuff. I'm going to take a chance here and "put words" into Randy's mouth. I would tend to think he's referring to the more major things that you might eventually be doing to pianos. I think he'd consider being able to replace a string that breaks while tuning (plain wire) almost as necessary as being able to tune the piano in the first place. Customers tend to expect a tech to be able to handle something like that while you're already there. My .02 cents. My apologies if I'm wrong, Randy. >Charles Neuman >PTG Assoc. Avery
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC