<html> <body> Hi Diane, I'm SO glad the dealer I do some work for isn't like that! He want's them right and he pays whatever I charge. Plus, usually some extra!!!!!!! Avery P.S. That will be nice once I retire from the university the end of May! :-) At 02:11 PM 1/15/2007, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Rex, I worked for 13 months for a Yamaha store that was in the process of being sold.  During that time I had 4 different managers and 14 different salesmen (they came and went) telling me what to do to prep the pianos. What I learned is that it is far more important to prep them according to who the boss is.  That went all the way from the first manager who told me: "Do whatever it takes, I want them right", to the last manager who suddenly sent me 40 miles south to a piano that still had it's tie-down sticks in the action. He had told us, "Only one tuning per piano (out of the box)." The only thing I absolutely couldn't stomach was to leave the badly ringing dampers on the Chinese grand as they were.  According to that manager, who is also a technician and a store owner in his own right, "No one listens to the dampening when they look at a piano!"  Then he proceeded to play hard, fast and loud to prove his point. (I fixed them when he wasn't looking). It's sad that only one out of four managers allowed his technicians to do what they knew was right for the piano--and he's the one who lost his bid to buy the store! Diane Diane Hofstetter ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Rex Roseman" <rosemanpiano@netzero.net> Reply-To: Pianotech List <pianotech@ptg.org> To: "'Pianotech List'" <pianotech@ptg.org> Subject: RE: Piano Store Check-in List Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:08:15 -0500 David Thanks for the encouraging reply. I will definitely take your advice about collecting manufacture information and talking to the owners. Piano tuning/repairing has been part of my life since 1980, and I have decided that it's time to be more focused on that part of my life; thus joining the Guild, working toward the exams, getting on email lists, ect. To give you some information about what the store works with, we have mostly new Boston and Kohler and Campbell (all there various brands) with some Baldwin pianos (various brands again) from a buy out of a closing of another piano store. The store also handles Steinways, but has a person that is responsible for only those pianos. I sometimes see the Essex pianos. (We have two stores and the stock is split between them.) As far as what I have been doing for prep work, the sales people have been concerned that the pianos are tuned and the pedals work properly. During the tuning, if I see or hear anything that is not correct, I repair it. For repairs, I can get away with up to about an hours worth of work and just add it to the bill. If there is something that needs parts or is major, it has to go through warranty and I write a quote. I have developed a set of 5 page excel spreadsheets that list every part and every adjustment for each piano type and I use that when I go into a house to evaluate a piano. I think that this is overkill for a new piano, but I want to add to what the sales people have requested so that I can be sure that the customer and the tuner/tech in the field will be satisfied with the instruments coming out to our stores. My frustration is that people keep complaining about the poor preparation of new pianos, but never say what they are seeing so that I can be sure to check it in the ones that I work on. The other part of my job is all the used trade-ins. I approach that from a totally different perspective, evaluating them as if they were a private piano and giving the store a quote as to what work needs to be done. They will then decide how much they can afford to put into the piano and let me know what repairs to complete. Thanks again for the input. Rex Roseman Piano Tuning </blockquote></body> </html>