Piano Repair & Tuning - What to Look For in a Secondhand Piano (Tuning Pins, Cracked Wrest Planks)

You can aces up an old aged piano for $400. I know, because I just awash one. But how do you apperceive if it's account affairs at all? Will it be repairable and will it be OK for your adolescent to apprentice on? You charge to apperceive what to attending for. The wrest axle and affability pins of my Moore & Moore cocked piano all looked excellent. It was one of the best I'd anytime apparent in that respect--there was no affirmation of damaged or abused pins, they all looked original, none had been formed in, none had marks on them, they were not angled and there were no signs of cracks or added accident to the wrest plank. The complete lath (the bigger section of wood, abaft the strings in the centre of the instrument) had no cracks either, and the strings all looked fine. The activity (the affective parts) formed able-bodied on all the notes, and the dampers chock-full the complete of anniversary agenda if you aerial the key or aloft the damper pedal. There was one missing artificial key, but that would be simple to replace. Most old pianos would not attending so acceptable on the inside. Then, a brace of weeks afterwards I got a complaint from the actual aghast buyer: "Hi Margaret. Afterwards we had the piano delivered we got a piano tuner out and were absolutely disappointed...it was clumsy to be tuned...when the tuner approved to bind the pins they would disentangle beeline abroad and she said it was no acceptable at all...so we accept assassin a piano. If the guys came out to bear the [new] piano they aswell said "No, that's cactus..." But the piano was in fact absolutely tunable, and the central apparatus were in actual acceptable condition. Eventually, afterwards added admonition from me, the client realised he'd begin a actual accessible instrument. The accomplishment of the tuner is ascendant to befitting the strings and affability pins 'on pitch.' If active in the limited boondocks of Karratha, I accomplished myself to tune a actual old piano in abundant worse activity than this. I aswell did some tunings on a brace of my students' old pianos. In all cases it was actual difficult to accumulate them in tune for added than a few minutes, partly due to my poor address with the affability bang (lever). However, if a able tuner came to boondocks he did a astonishing job and the three broken old pianos backward able-bodied in tune for abounding months. When a piano has not been acquainted for some years it may crave added than one affability to 'come up to pitch.' It's absurd to apperceive how able-bodied this is traveling to pan out, you can alone try it and see how abounding tunings it needs. The strings accept tonnes of astriction and you accept to delay for the astriction to even out afore accomplishing addition tuning. It can yield months afore the affability settles.Biyang CO-8 When he bought my Moore & Moore piano I told him it bare re-hydrating (it bare added baptize or damp in the wood). If the wrest axle had broiled out the pins would absolutely be loose. In Karratha we re-hydrated all three old pianos and it fabricated a BIG difference. The simple cure is to abode a alembic of baptize central the piano at the bottom. The bigger, the better, because humans tend to overlook about them and they eventually run out of water. It takes weeks to accept an effect. This re-hydrating aswell seemed to fix an activity botheration that two of our pianos had. Some tuners don't like baptize beakers, they account they will could cause problems with the activity or blight the strings so able admonition should be approved from a able technician, but it formed able-bodied for us. There are commercially-available humidifiers/de-humidifiers distinctively fabricated for pianos. Another bargain address to advice with the affability is to bang the pins into the wrest plank. It's a accepted antidote but there's a absolute to how abundant and how generally the pins can be formed in. The pins on this old piano looked like they'd never been formed at all, so that was still a applicable option. It's absolutely a job for a accomplished piano technician, to abstain accident to the pins or wrest plank. A abundant added big-ticket address is to alter the pins with beyond pins (they appear in altered sizes), but it would be a big adventure and it would be cheaper to get addition piano. In the end the client was actual blessed with his piano, it angry out to be absolutely a acceptable instrument.