7/3/2012 - Loose Tuning Pins
It happened again today. Went to see a first time client in Snellville, GA who had just bought a piano off of craigslist and wanted to have it tuned up for her daughter who was beginning to take piano lessons. At first glance the piano seemed decent enough. It was a little spinet that looked good with an action that seemed to be in good shape. But as soon as I played the first few notes, I knew this was going to be a story without a happy ending. Many of the keys played 2 or 3 pitches when my fingers pushed them down, which is a good indication that loose tuning pins might be a problem. This was confirmed when I put my tuning hammer on the pin and found no resistance at all when trying to pull the string up to pitch.
Loose tuning pins are really just an indication of a much bigger problem, that being a disintegrating tuning pin block. This is the piece of wood that the tuning pins are inserted into. And when this piece of wood begins to deteriorate, it usually spells the beginning of the end for most pianos, because to properly fix the problem the piano has to be totally rebuilt (price tag being somewhere between $5-10K for an upright piano). Yes, you can go out and buy a new upright piano for less than the cost of having an old one rebuilt.
While there are a couple of "dirty" fixes that can be done which may or may not help: such as removing the loose tuning pin and replacing it with one the next size bigger, or laying the piano on it's back and injecting super glue around the tuning pins, these procedures are not guaranteed to work. So, the owner is faced with either putting out more money for a "fix" that is not warranted, spending big bucks on having the piano rebuilt, or just trashing the piano and starting all over again with a yet another unknown quantity.
This is not to say that you can't find a good used piano from somewhere other than a reputable piano dealership. But, if you decide to purchase a piano in this manner, it would be wise to have the prospective instrument inspected by an experienced piano technician before committing to buying it. This will assure you that you are buying a quality instrument free from significant problems or issues. Most technicians I know usually charge about the same as their tuning rates to go and inspect a piano as long as it is located within their local service area. If you are considering buying a piano that is not close to home, then it would be a good idea to find a Registered Piano Technician with The Piano Technicians Guild who lives close to the piano and pay him/her to inspect the piano and report back. The Piano Technicians Guild website has a Registered Piano Technician locator feature by which you can enter in a zip code and RPT's will pull up by order of proximity.
It happened again today. Went to see a first time client in Snellville, GA who had just bought a piano off of craigslist and wanted to have it tuned up for her daughter who was beginning to take piano lessons. At first glance the piano seemed decent enough. It was a little spinet that looked good with an action that seemed to be in good shape. But as soon as I played the first few notes, I knew this was going to be a story without a happy ending. Many of the keys played 2 or 3 pitches when my fingers pushed them down, which is a good indication that loose tuning pins might be a problem. This was confirmed when I put my tuning hammer on the pin and found no resistance at all when trying to pull the string up to pitch.
Loose tuning pins are really just an indication of a much bigger problem, that being a disintegrating tuning pin block. This is the piece of wood that the tuning pins are inserted into. And when this piece of wood begins to deteriorate, it usually spells the beginning of the end for most pianos, because to properly fix the problem the piano has to be totally rebuilt (price tag being somewhere between $5-10K for an upright piano). Yes, you can go out and buy a new upright piano for less than the cost of having an old one rebuilt.
While there are a couple of "dirty" fixes that can be done which may or may not help: such as removing the loose tuning pin and replacing it with one the next size bigger, or laying the piano on it's back and injecting super glue around the tuning pins, these procedures are not guaranteed to work. So, the owner is faced with either putting out more money for a "fix" that is not warranted, spending big bucks on having the piano rebuilt, or just trashing the piano and starting all over again with a yet another unknown quantity.
This is not to say that you can't find a good used piano from somewhere other than a reputable piano dealership. But, if you decide to purchase a piano in this manner, it would be wise to have the prospective instrument inspected by an experienced piano technician before committing to buying it. This will assure you that you are buying a quality instrument free from significant problems or issues. Most technicians I know usually charge about the same as their tuning rates to go and inspect a piano as long as it is located within their local service area. If you are considering buying a piano that is not close to home, then it would be a good idea to find a Registered Piano Technician with The Piano Technicians Guild who lives close to the piano and pay him/her to inspect the piano and report back. The Piano Technicians Guild website has a Registered Piano Technician locator feature by which you can enter in a zip code and RPT's will pull up by order of proximity.
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