Learning the craft (was Bosendorfer...)

[Stephen Airy]

I'm looking into starting off with tuning, then getting into repairs, then 
rebuilding later.

At 07:11 AM 11/29/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Stephen,
>
>I do not want to discourage your interest in rebuilding pianos.  With your
>enthusiasm you may indeed be a master rebuilder or even a piano designer 
>someday.
>But my opinion is that you are getting the cart before the horse.  As in 
>any other
>field, you need to understand the basics before you specialize.  Thus, I 
>suspect we
>may have trouble taking your questions about piano construction seriously.
>
>The pianotech list is a great source of information for all of us, but 
>there's no
>way it can take the place of good fundamental information and 
>experience.  So I ask
>the rest of you-- how does one go about learning piano design?  That's 
>what I think
>Stephen needs to know.  Del, anything to contribute here?
>
>I would suggest that you first get the basics, such as Randy Potter's
>correspondence course.  There are also schools you can attend.  In the 
>meantime,
>don't let this "hobby" take too much time from your college studies unless, of
>course, you want to change from your current course of study to piano 
>technology.
>Keep your 4.0.  (I say that as a parent who is seeing his own three kids 
>through
>the college years.)
>
>Regards, Clyde
>
>Stephen Airy wrote:
>
> > As of yet I have NO experience (yet).  I would like to learn how to rebuild
> > pianos, but I don't immediately have the time (college), space (no
> > outbuilding on my property), or money (no job right now -- but your help in
> > how to get started in piano tuning would help -- I have had a few lessons
> > from Lee Hintz in San Diego area and I know Bruce Stevens).  Speaking of
> > tuning, I still notice that sometimes (tuning by ear -- I have virtually no
> > pitch reference at home where I'm practicing on 3 pianos (a 4'11" baby
> > grand, a 52" upright, and a 57" upright), and I don't exactly trust the
> > computer.  I often notice that I might be able to get the temperament
> > fairly good in tune, but there'll often be a stray wildly-beating fifth or
> > two (about 3-5bps near the midrange of the piano)
> >
> > I had posted a picture of a junky piano a while back -- what do you think
> > of practicing rebuilding on pianos of similar condition? (assuming the
> > pinblock is still good) -- also, what brands would you stay away from when
> > considering rebuilding a piano?  Also, I'm considering on starting out on
> > uprights, and when i feel like working on a pinblock do it on a grand or --
> > what high-quality brands of uprights (for example my ideas are Steinway &
> > Bosendorfer) do you think it might be possible to consider replacing a
> > pinblock?


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