Touchy subject

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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In a message dated 10/31/03 8:26:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
Piannerman@aol.com writes:


> People,
>       I am in need of some professional information that some of you can 
> supply and I would be grateful if you will share.  I really need to know how 
> much time I should budget to do a dealer prep on a new piano.  NOT PRICES, JUST 
> TIME.
>      Now before I get any irate answers about different pianos requiring 
> different times, I understand all that.  These particular pianos are Chinese and 
> I understand they will require more time than a Yamaha.  (At least I've been 
> told that.)
>      What I crave is like, what would be your best guess as to how much time 
> would be required to do a dealer prep on an average piano, in average 
> condition, for an average dealer.  I know a lot of assumptions will have to be made 
> and I apologize for being so vague but I have not done a dealer prep and am 
> not sure what all you need to do.  I am assuming you check all tolerances 
> like blow, dip, letoff, etc. and adjust to spec.
> Thanks a bunch,
> 

Charles,

Since the dealers I do work for claim to want to keep costs down so that they 
can give customers the lowest possible prices, I usually just do the steps 
that give me the most bang for the buck--tune(pitch raise if necessary), 
lubricate(knuckles with teflon, keypins with Protek or Goose Juice), check let-off(If 
close, I leave it alone), drop, repetition, and backchecks.  I do this on 
Kawai pianos, and the difference it makes is astounding compared to an 
out-of-the-box unit.  

I've worked on some Chinese pianos, and key dip always seems to be a bit of a 
problem.  There never seems to be enough aftertouch, particularly in the 
uprights(I've heard rumours that they're trying to be more consistent in the 
processing of the wood they use, so some of that should go away), so the time 
required on them may be considerably greater.

On the positive side, though the dollar-per-hour rate isn't that great, it is 
great to be able to have pianos to learn on.  This will later translate to 
far more $ in the pocket than what you'll get for just tuning.

Hope this helps,

Dave Stahl

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