Hi Terry, my guess would be amateur night on the key tops but possibly termites on the pins. <G> Joe Goss imatunr@srvinet.com www.mothergoosetools.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 3:49 PM Subject: Bad Refurbish - Warning - Rant > Tuned an 1893 S&S A1 today for a new client (a church). Within an estimated > 10 years the piano has gotten restrung, block, key bushings & tops, > wips/hammers & shanks. What a disaster. Barely tunable, barely playable. > Approximately half the tuning pins are leaning so far forward that you would > think the string coils would pop right off the top of the pin. I could > barely keep my tuning lever on them. A few of them were leaning forward and > next to one that happened to be angled back - I almost needed a thin-walled > tuning lever head to get it on - the pins were almost touching each other at > the top (luckily one was pounded into the block farther than the other so I > had a little clearance). Don't know that tuning mattered much anyway, there > were so many false beats - even in the tenor section (mostly loose bridge > pins). Now being that some pins were leaning back, and some were leaning > forward, does this suggest that whoever drilled the block was drunk or was > there maybe rotten areas in the wood? > > How in the world could the pins get so erratic? I'll be going there again in > a week or two and will take a picture. > > New plastic keytops put on keys without planing down the keystick. Sharps > had to be raised so high they were being pushed down by the fallboard when > opened. Many sharps did not go through let-off. I could go on and on. I stop > with just one last comment: what crap work. > > At PTG conferences I have seen a number of rebuilt pianos that clearly were > examples of very fine workmanship. Out in the wild though over the few years > I have been servicing pianos I have run across maybe a dozen or two grands > or high-end uprights that have been restrung/action work/etc. I have yet to > see one that I would describe as being "nice". A few might be reasonably > classified as "marginally acceptable". But most have been poor or worse. > What's the deal? > > I feel marginally better now. Thanks ;-) > > Terry Farrell > > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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