Lynn 1. If the soundboard has crown, by all means, shim it. 4. By "cost", I presume you mean selling price. This is the problems with these older, well made?pianos.?It used to be that you could ask $8 - $10,000 for a rebuilt Knabe, but the market just isn't there anymore. For a little more money,?a customer can buy a pretty nice new instruments.?Yes, eventually you'll be able to get it, if it has new everything, except a soundboard. But you might have to wait a year or two to find just the right buyer. If you're buying this instrument as an investment, I would hesitate. If this belongs to a customer, and he/she wants to spend the money, it will be worth it, as long as she/he understands that he/she will never get her money back, at least not in the near future. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician Mililani, Oahu, HI 808-349-2943 Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Lynn Hall <lmha60 at yahoo.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 5:43 pm Subject: [pianotech] Rebuilding a early 1920's Knabe Piano I have a?few questions about rebuilding a Knabe Piano: ? 1) I notice the soundboard has very tight grains, never has been replaced, but has at least 9 substantial cracks. If I decide to replace the soundboard instead of asking the re-builder to shim the cracks, will I be able to find a soundboard that is as good as this one is from the 1920's? ? 2) Or should I demand that it be shimmed to retain grains/inch? ? 3) Could I sell the old soundboard to offset the cost of replacement, since it would be a good soundboard to build shims? ? 4) The piano has a mahogany finish, but is in very bad shape due to the age of the piano. I want it to look very nice and last many years. What is a reasonable price to pay for this? Is between $10,000 and $12,000 too much. ? Many thanks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090112/08ab1da4/attachment.html>
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