Killer Octave - Warranty Issue?

[Ron Nossaman]

> This killer octave thing to me is real, but its cause is a
>bit fuzzy, because I have never fixed one.

Of course it's real, and you won't ever have fixed one until you've
replaced the soundboard with a better design. The board just isn't stiff
enough in that area.



> What is the consensus here -
>should I point it out to the owner and suggest he may want to initiate a
>warranty claim (let 'em voice it six times and replace strings, etc. before
>you insist on a new soundboard/piano)?

I don't usually point out bad soundboards unless the customer has a voicing
complaint or the problem is DRAMATIC. There are just too many of them. In
this case, maybe you should at least ask the customer if it bothers him. If
you pursue it, have the customer go through channels and contact the
manufacturer yourself as well. The first thing you will learn is that in
the entire history of the company, no one has ever contacted them with a
soundboard complaint. Why on earth would you think it's the soundboard? Who
told you that? Are you sure you're a real tech? It must be voicing. Offer
to voice it, regulate it, tighten plate bolts, polish bridge pins, or any
other of the long list of things that it surely is besides the soundboard.
Take days at it, be extremely meticulous, and charge them your full rate
for everything you do. Report back, no fix, then stand aside while they
truck in at least one other tech from at least 200 miles away so do the
same thing. Since you did such a good job fixing all the things that
weren't the cause of the problem, the other guy will not find much to do,
but will manage to spend a day at it anyway because that's what he was
hired to do. The imported tech(s) may or may not report the problem solved,
but the customer needs to report to whoever they are dealing with in the
system after each attempt to keep the process going. Eventually, the
manufacturers will tire of throwing money at this wholly mysterious problem
with this apparently unreasonable customer with the tech from Hell and
replace the piano. This one will, you bet your great aunt Aphasia, go
directly to some dealer's showroom floor and be sold to someone else who
will probably never notice the killer octave. That's not a problem though,
because three expert technicians have gone over the piano thoroughly (at
great expense to the company, mind you, thus establishing their good
intentions) and fixed everything that was wrong with it. The replacement
may be fine, in which case you win. Or it may have the same problem, even
after having been worked on by three highly paid expert technicians in
another state. 

In the past, I have tried to save everyone time and money by declining to
try to fix bad soundboards with voicing, bearing adjustments, and
regulation. The money was spent anyway, I never got compensated for time I
had in the process trying to help the customer, and never got any
acknowledgement whatsoever for my efforts. My current thinking is that if
you aren't willing to give away your time and knowledge on killer octave
soundboard problems, you have to be part of the problem and take the money
the manufacturers insist on spending on what you have already determined is
not the problem. If you live to be a thousand, you'll never win, but you
can't live to be a thousand if you don't eat. Giving a manufacturer a break
doesn't educate them either, unless they are among the few that are
interested in their product already.  

That's not a consensus, but it is an opinion.

Ron N