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<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> Thanks for the
suggestions. (Was very busy last few days and couldn't respond til
now). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> You gotta be careful what
pianos you agree to tune in the first place, or you
get stuck with pianos you don't necessarily want to service year after
year. Once you've tuned the thing a time or two, they wonder why all the
sudden it's not good enough for you. I "inherited" the client from a
colleague who was ill, and tuned it twice while "covering" for him, but now
that I've seen the condition of the piano, I wish I'd turned it down in the
first place. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> It's a 1917 Steinway 6'4"
reproducer with the player mechanism removed. Nicely refinished, but has
had the automotive valve spring thing done to the soundboard in an attempt to
restore crown. You don't always notice these things until you have to
crawl under there for some other reason. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> Somebody did a poor job of
replacing keytops, which necessitated my rebushing the keys to keep them from
clattering and rattling against each other. Should've investigated further
before even agreeing to do that because once I got the action to my shop and saw
the keys, I couldn't believe the butchering that had taken place.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> I took a lot of photos I'd
like to post, but they're too huge for e-mail and I'm not sure how to reduce
them in size. They can't be reduced too far, or the details aren't
visible. But it would be interesting to some of you, just to speculate as
to why someone went to all the trouble to shim, splint, cut, alter, scarf,
drill, fill, graft, and otherwise butcher this set of keys.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> On Steinway reproducers,
besides the keyslip, key blocks, and fallboard, you have to lie on your back
under the keybed and unscrew a block of wood related to the una corda
pedal just to remove the action. On this piano, one of the screws for
that block is inaccessible unless you also remove the lyre first, and it's no
trivial matter getting the lyre back on, that is, holding the heavy thing up in
position with one hand while trying to get a machine screw threaded into a cast
iron flange under the keybed. So, just pulling and replacing the action
means 20 minutes of one's time. And of course she has the piano back
in a corner with almost no clearance between the keyboard and the wall,
with the bench, a lamp, an armchair, and a corner of the fireplace in the
way. It's not a light piano to just pull back a couple feet
without having to move a huge potted plant. And of course the
casters don't want to roll from the floor up onto the rug without buckling the
rug. Make that at least a half hour of one's time just to pull the action
and put the piano back where it was. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> In my opinion, it can't be
properly regulated and voiced without massive replacement or much repinning of
action parts, and really it should have a new set of keys made for it, but the
cost wouldn't be justified since the soundboard's been "valve springed."
Yet she likes the thing and probably wonders why I can't work wonders, since the
last guy never complained about it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> Yeah, maybe the thing to say
is, "Well, it would take $35K to put things right."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Arial Narrow"> --David Nereson,
RPT</FONT></DIV>
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