<HTML>In a message dated 11/22/00 8:04:44 AM Central Standard Time, mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com (Farrell) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">> "Instead of the high flight tune-offs between Coleman & Smith, the > ultimate PTG challenge might have been having a couple of our > superstars each uncrate one of those puppies, and after a frenzy of > string seating and hammer needling, see what they could turn them > into." Now that is an interesting thought. Give 'em maybe four to eight hours - anything goes - and see what they can do. I'll bet a GREAT EDUCATIONAL DIVIDEND would result. Are you reading this Dale Probst??? Who is running the show in Reno this year??? Are you reading this??? Is this an idea or what? Anything to increase the tolerability of some of these offensive little critters. </BLOCKQUOTE> Frankly, Terry, I don't see this happening.  As someone who deals with this kind of piano, fine grands and everything in between, I can tell you that you learn to look at the piano and the expectations of the customer as individual cases.  The old saying, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" comes to mind.  The lady thought it sounded pretty good as it was and speaking pragmatically from experience, that already counts for a lot. Doing what you and the other writer suggest, tearing the piano apart, seating strings, replacing materials, etc., would only end up making you, the technician look like some kind of con artist who would try to "sell ice to Eskimos".  If this piano had not been tuned in years but the customer is not concerned about pitch, why try to *force* that issue?  If she agrees that it sounds "tinny" and it is obvious that the hammers were overly hardened, why not just squirt a little alcohol on them or use Roger Jolly's steam method? Now, I might do things like vacuum out dirt, lube, tighten screws, adjust lost motion, let-off, key level and dip, file and basically voice hammers on a piano like this when the time comes and the customer agrees.  But in this case, it is a newer instrument which was obviously purchased more as a piece of furniture than as a musical instrument.  It would be best to simply tune while perhaps raising the pitch a small but comfortable amount and use a quick and easy voicing technique that would soften the overly hard hammers. If the tuning pins are tight, take that as a positive thing, not negative.   The back structure of these kinds of pianos is a solid as a rock.  You can count on at least that part of it to hold up for a lifetime.  Use the kind of tuning hammer and/or technique that will allow you to move those pins.  Don't worry about false beats if there are any, the customer can't distinguish such fine points.  Don't badmouth the piano in any way.  Tell her it "looks nice" in her living room and "sounds pretty good" when you are finished tuning, *in the usual amount of time and for the usual fee*. Lastly, do you think I would *insist* on tuning in ET for all of the reasons people give?  Never, never, never.  The beauty of knowing a variety of HT's or creating a unique temperament as I have with the EBVT is that you really can make such a piano sound ever so much sweeter to the people who own it. Time and again in my career, I have done the simple, practical, useful and appropriate things to service the small, common piano and have built a loyal and contented clientele while others who "only do Steinways" and who have proposed "rebuilding" an instrument which is essentially new have been labeled as crooks and gone out of business.  If there is to be a Convention program about how to handle a piano like this, it should be about how to do the basic and practical things easily and efficiently, not on applying the techniques used on fine, expensive instruments where they will do little or no good. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>