I'm tuning/servicing a certain piano that I'm concerned might have a string breakage problem, (and possibly others!) and I'm wondering about what to watch out for, and how to advise the customer. (Also a very sluggish action, which seems to be mostly tight keybushings....) In particular, I am wondering if anyone here on the List has had problems with these pianos. (Or any other problems you may feel inspired to share about Schafer & Sons pianos in general.) The critter in question is a 20-year-old Schafer & Sons VS-44 44" vertical, (made around 1988, according to Pierce). -Not my favorite piano to work on, (not the best, but also not the worst) but so far, I haven't had a boatload of problems with Schafer & Sons. (Haven't worked with a whole lot of them either, though). I haven't personally worked on this particular model before. I think the piano may have originally been made in South Korea by Samick. (Or possibly Daewoo...) The most immediate problem seems to be string breakage (bass strings), but I would be very interested in hearing about any other problems anyone else in this forum has run into with regularity with these pianos, either as a brand, or this particular model. The piano hasn't turned into a real major problem yet, -but I am concerned that it might. I don't think this piano had ever really been tuned since it was new. It was 60 cents flat. In the process of raising pitch, two bass strings broke (among the lowest "singles"). I was doing a 12 cent overpull, (-that is about all the risk I was willing to take). The piano still ended up around 12 cents flat when I was through with the pitch raise. I still have to go back to replace the broken bass strings and do the final tuning(s). What I am wondering is, based on others' experience, how many more strings are likely to break? Are the ones that broke a harbinger of things to come? Should I order a whole new set of single/all bass strings? The strings that are on the piano are pretty clean - they are not rusty or oxidized, and still sound good. There is no sign of other strings ever having broken. (But like I say, I don't think it has been tuned much, if ever. Part of the problem I think is, on this model, the bass strings are forced to make a very acute angle turn (approaching 90 degrees!) around the upper bridge pins just under the tuning pins. The piano supposedly has a "lifetime warranty" (ha ha). (Does that mean if a bunch of bass strings break, Schafer & Sons will/should cover it?) Thanks in advance~ Kendall Ross Bean PianoFinders www.pianofinders.com <http://www.pianofinders.com/> e-mail: kenbean at pianofinders.com phone: (925) 676-3355 Connecting Pianos and People -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081125/384b3bc5/attachment.html>
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