<HTML>In a message dated 8/14/02 9:59:48 PM Central Daylight Time, pianotech@ttlv.net writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Hi, I have a friend,and fellow technician who's needing advice.He went and looked at a small Cable grand  (1905) for a customer looking to buy it.He told him it was worth the 800.00 asking price,and didn't see anything structurely wrong with it.The customer bought the instrument and my friend moved it.He pich raised it 1/4 step,tuned,and the next day,it had a cracked plate.I reassured him that he did nothing wrong,according to what he told me.What should he do? Thanks in advance, Hazen Bannister </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE> Hazen The answers you have gotten on how to repair the cracked plate have been very helpful. But I am wondering if the answer you're looking for is how is your friend going to tell the customer that the cracked plate is not his fault, nor that it was a problem that could be foreseen. This is probably one of the most difficult things in our line of work, appraising a piano, which then develops a problem. The only answer I can give is you is to have your friend get the Journal article to back up the explanation that these problems do happen, and that it was purely coincidental that the plate cracked after he tuned the piano. Hopefully, it can be explained that, unfortunately, this is one of the dangers of buying an older used instruments.   Wim </HTML>