Gregor. As I said in a previous post, there are some dealers who are very fastidious about making sure their pianos are prepped before they leave the store. But for the most part, regardless of the quality of their pianos, the most a dealer will do after un-crating a piano, is have it tuned, and perhaps make minor repairs to sticking keys or hanging up dampers. The tuners are often those who have been in the business for only a short period of time, and are still developing their skills. As a result, even if their tuning technique is satisfactory, they do not have the know how to evaluate what else needs to be done to the piano to make it play and sound better. Even if the tuner has enough experience to make the necessary regulations, some dealers don't want to spend the money to have the work done. When I first got to Hawaii, I started working for dealer who carries middle of the road products, and a high end grand piano line. He allowed me to spend 6 hours prepping one of his new high end grands. When I mentioned this to another tuner who had been working for this dealer, he said he never got permission to do that kind of prep work. When I worked for a dealer in Alabama, he would give me permission to do what ever it took to make the pianos right. But what he would not do is let me call the customer to schedule an appointment to tune the piano after it was delivered. He would give them a coupon good for a free piano tuning, but it was good for only 6 months. Most customers would call me after about 2 years, but the dealer would honor the "coupon", except that the customer would have to pay me the difference between my pitch raise fee, and my normal tuning fee. And any time the customer called with a complaint, I had permission to do what ever it took to make the piano right, and he would pay me. When I owned a store in St. Louis, all of the new pianos that arrived got a good going over, either by me, or one of my employees. I didn't care how long it took to get the piano "right". My used pianos, too, were made to play, sound, and look, as good as they could, without doing major replacement of parts, unless the piano was worth it. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician 94-505 Kealakaa Str. Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 808-349-2943 www.Bleespiano.com Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Gregor _ <karlkaputt at hotmail.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Sat, Nov 28, 2009 12:08 am Subject: [pianotech] prepping before sale I miss a point in the ongoing prepping discussion: what do you exactly do before you sale a new piano? Regarding all the posts one could assume that new pianos arrive in a wimpy condition at the dealer. Is it really so? Perhaps we should differentiate between high and low end pianos. As a dealer I would accept that a low budget piano arrives in another condition than a high end piano. In the first line I sell used upright pianos and I have only one brand in stock that I sell new: Wendl & Lung. Although it´s a low budget piano it arrives in a very good condition in my store. When they arrive in Germany a German collegue makes the end control and some prepp work, e.g. string seating, string mating, tuning, voicing and a rough contoll of the regulation. Not till then it gets delivered to the dealers. My part is to work on the key balance holes, tightening the action screws and to tweak the regulation if needed or desired. But I am talking about a economically priced Chinese piano, so I don´t care about a key drop of 10.5 mm instead of 10 mm. I seldom refine the regulation and I had many professional players or teachers in my store who were thrilled not oly about the sound but also about how they can play the action just in the condition the piano arrived at my store. Will mentioned that many manufacturers don´t pound in the pianos. I can´t belive that. I am sure that e.g. every German factory uses a pounding in machine and even a Chinese producer like Wendl & Lung (Hailun) uses it. Look at the video on step 8. Delivery without pounding in is senseless and I think even most of the cheap manufacturers are aware of it. http://www.wendl-lung.com/jart/prj3/wendl_lung/main.jart?rel=en&content-id=1225437990106&reserve-mode=active ; Selling an used piano is another story. This is what I do on every used upright (I seldom work on grands): -string seating -tightening all action screws and if necessary changing center pins -lubricating damper springs and damper rod -hammer reshaping -burning hammer shanks -travelling hammers -hammer string mating -polishing and lubricating key pins and capstans -key levelling -regulation and voicing -new felts on trapwork With used pianos I get paid for that work with my margin. New pianos should leave my store in the same prepped state, but they require much less work, at least the Wendl & Lung. I can´t compare with other brands as I don´t sell other brands. So, what are your experiences with other brands? What has to be done? Gregor ------------------------------------------ piano technician - tuner - dealer Münster, Germany www.weldert.de Sicher ist besser. Internet Explorer 8. Jetzt downloaden! = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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