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<P>Well, okay. I charge $150 for new, plastic, one piece whites, extra for sharps. Takes me a couple of hours in shop and maybe another half to one hour trimming and fitting in the field. It is especially nice if I am also rebushing the keys.</P>
<P>I have a bandsaw with jig to cut off old fronts. Pop, scrape, and steam off old tops. And et cetera ... nothing fancy. It may not, strictly speaking, be possible to charge out at full shop rates and times but it is enjoyable, the results are satisfying (fun to see the customer go oooh aaaah) and profitable. There are other jobs that also are "losers," strictly speaking but still bring in the money. One that comes to mind is new bridal straps ... </P>
<P>On the other hand, there is great profit in Dampp-Chasers, both in mark-up and labor. If I actually charged as much as they suggest on their website, I'd feel guilty! If they didn't REALLY make a difference, I wouldn't sell them.</P>
<P>EXCEPT the stupid undercovers. They also really work so I guess the customer is paying for the results, not the product, but I think they are absurdly overpriced to us and cannot take much of a markup, if any, on them. And installing them is one of my least favorite jobs, second only to tuning crappy console/spinet player pianos.</P>
<P>Smilin' ... <BR><BR>Alan Barnard<BR>Salem, MO<BR>Joshua 24:15<BR><BR><BR><BR></P>
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Original message<BR>From: pianolady50@peoplepc.com<BR>To: "Pianotech List" <PIANOTECH@PTG.ORG><BR>Received: 01/28/2007 6:01:43 PM<BR>Subject: Kimball Consolette keytop problem<BR><BR>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>In respectful regard to Alan's comment copied below...While I'm all for learning how to do as much as possible, in reality, if you factor in your </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>hourly rate to do the occasional keytop work *by hand*, the cost to the customer can quickly exceed that of a sub-contracted job (and the value of a low end piano). Furthermore, if you wish to decrease your time to lessen the cost, there will be expenses for the tooling and the set up time required. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Most keytop shops have dedicated machinery thus increasing accuracy while decreasing turnaround time and cost. They do keytops for all qualities of pianos and see as many for "junk" spinets as high end grands. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Debbie</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><PRE>I would have to say that I strenuously disagree. For a fine piano rebuild, definitely. </PRE><PRE>But for average pianos, learn to do a decent, good-looking job and make some money. </PRE><PRE>It's not that hard.
Alan Barnard</PRE></FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>