[pianotech] Appraisal

[Barbara Richmond]

I've dealt with string breaking churches before. One church plowed through a set of hammers on a Yamaha C-3 in just a year. Well, actually it was the treble hammers of the white keys--guess they didn't use those pesky sharps much. The minister casually said to me he thought that they wouldn't have the breaking string problem when they got the new piano... 

Another church was fine with their YC upright for a couple years. Then one time I went in to service it and the character of the tone had gotten quite bright and the hammers were significantly worn. I went into the office and asked who the new pianist was. It turned out that they had started renting the space to another worship group. In spite of my working with the hammers and regulation, strings started breaking. I got called in to speak to the church leaders, told them what was happening to the piano (the truth) and one guy got so mad at me that he lunged at me, shouting. I walked out. They had talked to the competing piano dealer in town who said that the piano shouldn't be breaking strings. I never heard what happened after that, but I secretly hoped that they traded the "defective" piano in on one from the competing dealer---and then had the same exact problem. Guess that wasn't very Christian of me. 

Barbara Richmond, RPT 
near Peoria, Illinois 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Norm Barrett" <barr8345 at bellsouth.net> 
To: pianotech at ptg.org 
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 12:41:18 AM 
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Appraisal 

I remember one case of a new piano breaking strings and tone of the 
deacons asked me why this was happening. I replied, look at the floor 
just behind the "tempo pedal". The carpet at that point was worn through 
all the way, the underlay and the flooring was dug out at least 3/4 
inch. He did understand that meant stomping and pounding. 
Norm Barrett 


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