[pianotech] Todays Appointment

[Al Guecia/AlliedPianoCraft]

OK, now tell me how you really feel. 

anon


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From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 10:45 AM
To: <toddpianoworks at att.net>; <pianotech at ptg.org>
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Todays Appointment

> 
> 
>> The piano is a 1916 Lyon & Healy Player Upright.  The history she gave 
>> me was that she bought for about $4,000 from a private owner who had 
>> supposedly restored it in 2001.  When she said it was restored I was NOT 
>> expecting what I discovered.
> 
> What you describe is exactly what I've discovered and come to 
> expect for the last 30+ years. "Player people" generally know 
> and care absolutely nothing about pianos. The mouse detritus 
> may or may not even have been shoveled out, but the piano is 
> almost always in it's original condition of advanced 
> decomposition, and is typically nearly unplayable by any 
> reasonable standard. The case is nearly always refinished, 
> sometimes nicely, and new keytops have been installed, badly, 
> and not trimmed to fit the key. With the original key bushings 
> still in, this makes for an exceptionally professional result. 
> The hammers are shaped with what seems to have been a 
> chainsaw, with the moldings hitting the strings in the top 
> octave, and the action is so worn out it can't possibly be 
> regulated. The player is typically poorly and incompletely 
> done as well. The valves are original, replaced with something 
> that has no hope of working, like heavy steel washers surfaced 
> with Neoprene, or incompetently reworked, with no apparent 
> understanding of gapping or seating requirements. Pouches 
> could be made of anything at all, and dished randomly, again, 
> with no apparent understanding of what they should do. 
> Pneumatics likely haven't been re-hinged, and the hinges are 
> probably so full of PPCo's plastic glue (PVC-E, for 
> "flexibility") that they won't collapse under vacuum. Gaskets 
> original (possibly greased), and pumpers covered with water 
> base contact cement with scrap leather gussets (sheepskin, 
> left over from their pump organ work) at the cracked corners 
> so they don't even have to re-cover the things. They amazingly 
> work, sometimes - sort of.
> 
> This is exactly the kind of ignorant hack junk work attitude 
> that needs to die from the planet. There's no reason these 
> people can't attempt to learn something about what they do to 
> make money, except that they won't. So far, the almost 
> universal whine has been that they can't take the time to do 
> anything right (they know how, of course, but just can't), 
> because nobody will pay what it takes to do it right. That's 
> true. Very few will. That's because there are still plenty of 
> cheap hacks quite willing to take the job for 10% of what it 
> would take to do it well, and rip them off. "I make good money 
> working on this junk", they brag. But questioning them on what 
> it takes to do any of it right indicates that they think they 
> know only what they think they need to know to do what they're 
> minimally doing, and aren't interested in knowing or doing 
> ANYTHING more, even at risk of increasing their income and 
> improving their reputation. They'll defend their ignorance to 
> the bloody death, and probably call you an elitist snob for 
> suggesting anything else.
> 
> So I'll still service the players I've rebuilt through the 
> years. but I'm not interested in dealing with and being 
> responsible for anyone else's lousy player work any more 
> unless they want it rebuilt - which it almost certainly needs. 
> There have been very rare exceptions, but well over 90% of the 
> player work I've seen from other people has been as I describe.
> 
> Ron N
> 
>
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