[pianotech] FW: Re: crack

[Ron Nossaman]

Ed Sutton wrote:
> I see red flags.
> People who are trying to file a bogus insurance claim are not likely to 
> pay a piano technician who doesn't support their story.
> Proceed with caution. Get paid up front.
>  
> Ed S.

I've seen this situation dozens of times. "The movers cracked 
my soundboard". No, they didn't. The move might possibly have 
done it, from a very wet climate to a very dry one, but it 
wasn't the movers. I don't think the owners are trying to file 
a bogus insurance claim. They're just ignorant. The soundboard 
on most of these I've seen have likely been cracked for a long 
time, judging from the dust backfill in the crack. The owner 
likely didn't realize this because the lid hadn't been opened 
for many years (displacing the family portraiture archive), 
until the post-move inspection. The piano being a half 
semitone low lends some credence to this. Then, having been 
taught from birth that a crack in the soundboard means the 
piano is toast, they panic when they see the ancestral picture 
shelf at risk, and look for an out. They know *they* didn't 
crack it, so someone else *must* have.

Ron N