Plate break after restringing

[Vanderhoofven]

Dear Warren,

I am sorry that the plate broke on your piano after putting so much time
and money into the piano.

I can't answer the first three questions, but you might want to let them
know about it quickly so you can discuss options.  Maybe you can find
another piano for them, or perhaps you can have the plate welded.

I have a good friend who is a rebuilder that has had two unique situations.
    
1.  The plate in an old upright player broke after the plate had been
refinished and the piano restrung.  He actually found an exact duplicate
plate (same model of piano) in an old graveyard of pianos (He has about 20
old upright pianos moldering in the empty field in back of his shop).  I
can't imagine the odds of this happening!  Actually finding a replacement
plate is highly unlikely to say the least, but he found one!  Of course,
the replacement plate had to be cleaned and sanded and rebronzed, and the
piano had to be restrung again, which was time consuming.  This was his
personal piano, so he didn't get paid to do all of this work.  But I can
imagine the cost would be several thousand dollars or more to do this work
for a customer.  If the piano hadn't been a player piano, I think the piano
would have been trashed.

2.  The second scenario was an old small Baldwin grand that they purchased
from a wholesaler to rebuild and resell.  They refinished the plate,
installed a new pinblock, repaired the soundboard and made a new bass
bridge, refinished the case (beautiful finish work) and reconditioned the
action.  As they were doing the chip tunings after restringing, the plate
broke at a strut.  They were devastated after having put all of this time
and money into the piano, and they didn't want to give up on it.  So they
continued to finish out the rest of the piano, and tune the piano up to
pitch several times.  Then, they took some thin flexible sheet metal and
protected all of the strings and soundboard with the sheet metal.  Then,
they carted the whole piano to a experienced welder, and had the piano
welded with the strings on and up to pitch.  After it cooled down, they had
to do extra tuning and also redo the plate finish on the strut.  They were
FINALLY able to sell the piano to a customer, but the customer was informed
of the broken plate that had been welded.  They only were able to get
$4000.00 for all of the work, so they took a big loss on that piano.
However, the piano is still tuning well (so I have heard) and the plate
weld is holding.

Good Luck,
David

At 07:27 PM 10/28/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>After restringing a Paul G. Mehlin & Sons upright serial # 21406 and in
>the process of bringing the strings up to 150 cents flat, I heard this
>loud bang and discovered a large crack in the left bottom of the plate
>where it curves around the corner from the bottom to the vertical.
>
>I have several questions:
>
>1. What is my liability in this situation?
>
>2. How much does plate repair cost usually?
>
>3. I have over a thousand dollars worth of labor in this turkey
>already.  Will I be able to collect any of it if the plate can't be
>repaired.
>
>4. How would you handle the customer?
>
>Thanks,
>
>WHATAREVOLTINGMESSTHISISFISHER
>-- 
>Home of the Humor List
>Warren D. Fisher
>fish@communique.net
>Registered Piano Technician
>Piano Technicians Guild
>New Orleans Chapter 701
>

David A. Vanderhoofven, RPT
Joplin, Missouri, USA        
e-mail:  dkvander@clandjop.com

web page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/
#pianotech page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/ircpiano.html