<br><br><span class="gmail_quote"><br><br></span> <div>On the subject of Technical Training, I will reiterate what I've said before, The amount of training necessary depends on how good your contacts/prospects are for finding work once trained. I took an extension course offered by The University of Minnesota-Minneapolis housed in The MacPhail School of Music. We learned tuning, basic regulation, and repairs and restrung a Steinway grand in class. I left there with no store to do work for completely on my own except for a mentor always willing to answer any question. He assured me when I asked my first question that there were no dumb questions just dumb answers, letting me know I was always free to ask him anything without fear of ridicule. I didn't TOUCH another Steinway for almost 20 years and then it was a verticle, the grands came after another 5. Much of what I learned was by comparison, if I had some keys malfunctioning I compared their function to those that weren't and analized the difference. If I still couldn't figure out the problem I returned to my mentor and talked it over with him, I lost money in those early days by not charging the customer for my gaps in knowledge. However I still have many of those same customers today. I came to the Guild late about 10 years ago, then had to drop out for a few years to care for my Mother and rejoined about 5 or 6 years ago.  </div> <div>If you will be working in close proximity with a skilled tech who is willing to answer your questions, rudimentary raining is all you need, the repititiveness of many of the tasks is training enough.  I flike me you will jumping into a business of your own and need to make a living ASAP get all the training you can, you'll need it. Buy the books, go to the seminars, take the PTG classes, follow a pro around for a month or two. </div> <div> </div> <div>On the issue of hanging hammers with Titebond and my post from last night, I was referring to a field repair in which I didn't have time to go home and get my gluepot come back and wait the appropriate amount of time for the glue to properly set. The artist(George Winston) likes to come in at 1 or 2 AM to rehearse on the piano and critique the tuning and any other "problems" he finds. I did have enough time for the Titebond to set before then. </div> <div> </div> <div>I have hung hammers with hot hide glue until the last year or so. I then discovered the trim and moulding glue that Titebond makes. It has a faster cure time, it's "open" time is only about 8 minutes but like titebond if you find you have some crooked or twisted hammers the next day it will release with a heat gun and re-adhere when it cools.  <br>-- <br>Michael Magness<br>Magness Piano Service<br>608-786-4404<br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.ifixpianos.com/" target="_blank">www.IFixPianos.com</a><br>email <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com" target="_blank"> mike@ifixpianos.com</a>  </div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Michael Magness<br>Magness Piano Service<br>608-786-4404<br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.ifixpianos.com/" target="_blank"> www.IFixPianos.com</a><br>email <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com" target="_blank">mike@ifixpianos.com</a>