<HTML>In a message dated 10/31/= 03 8:26:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, Piannerman@aol.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-= LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">People,      I am in need of some professional informa= tion that some of you can supply and I would be grateful if you will share. =  I really need to know how much time I should budget to do a dealer pre= p on a new piano.  NOT PRICES, JUST TIME.     Now before I get any irate answers about differ= ent pianos requiring different times, I understand all that.  These par= ticular pianos are Chinese and I understand they will require more time than= a Yamaha.  (At least I've been told that.)     What I crave is like, what would be your best g= uess as to how much time would be required to do a dealer prep on an aver= age piano, in average condition, for an average dealer. &n= bsp;I know a lot of assumptions will have to be made and I apologize for bei= ng so vague but I have not done a dealer prep and am not sure what all you n= eed to do.  I am assuming you check all tolerances like blow, dip, leto= ff, etc. and adjust to spec. Thanks a bunch, Charles Cron</BLOCKQUOTE> Charles, Since the dealers I do work for claim to want to keep costs down so that= they can give customers the lowest possible prices, I usually just do the s= teps that give me the most bang for the buck--tune(pitch raise if necessary)= , lubricate(knuckles with teflon, keypins with Protek or Goose Juice), check= let-off(If close, I leave it alone), drop, repetition, and backchecks. &nbs= p;I do this on Kawai pianos, and the difference it makes is astounding compa= red to an out-of-the-box unit.   I've worked on some Chinese pianos, and key dip always seems to be a bit= of a problem.  There never seems to be enough aftertouch, particularly= in the uprights(I've heard rumours that they're trying to be more consisten= t in the processing of the wood they use, so some of that should go away), s= o the time required on them may be considerably greater. On the positive side, though the dollar-per-hour rate isn't that great, = it is great to be able to have pianos to learn on.  This will later tra= nslate to far more $ in the pocket than what you'll get for just tuning. Hope this helps, Dave Stahl</HTML>