Piano Key top replacement

This is a good example of the difference replacing your key tops can make. 

Ivory Ban Expands

http://onforb.es/1e0m15c

A new ban on sale of pianos with Ivory keys has been proposed, this could effect everyone with Ivory keys. This will supposedly effect even intrastate as well as interstate sales. To read the published extensive article in Forbes use the link above. 

Hammer Reshaping

The Hammers above are out of a vertical piano from 1924. Notice the grooves and flat spots where they strike the strings.

The flat spots widen the "strike point" of the hammer dulling the tone.

The grooves act like tiny fingers and give the strings a pluck sound as the note is struck.

  

The hammers to the back of this photo have been reshaped. Note the difference in the strike point. The grooves cannot always be totally removed because you get too close to the wood core. The main point of this is to reshape the strike point.

This is the final result of a reshaping. We have exposed a new, harder layer of felt and reshaped the strike point. We have also removed most of the grooves to reduce or elimate the plucking noise.

A neat looking piano

This piano is 1954 Wurlitzer spinet. Yes those light colored panels are a vinyl type material with a pattern that sort of makes it look like stone. 

Hammer Reshaping

If your hammers have grooves like these it could help the tone of your piano immensely by having them reshaped. It gets rid of/diminishes the grooves and exposes a new layer of felt. The tiny grooves grab the strings for a split second dulling the tone of your piano.

Getting quality work

These silver colored bridge pin "replacement" pieces in the middle of the photo are the result of a lazy or uneducated piano technician.

The staples holding the strings to the bridge are an example of the same lazy or uneducated technician.

      There is no need for this type of work. I wouldn't even bet that this guy even saved the owners any money by going this route. If I were a betting man I would bet that he saved himself a couple of hours and charged the customer about the same amount. There is an issue with the strings coming off of the bridge on this piano hence the staples you see in the bottom photo. It could be structural and it could be that it was 160 cents low. (100 cents is an entire 1/2 step in notes.) So when you played an A on this piano you were hearing somewhere between G# and G. That creates a lot of slack in the piano strings allowing the piano to lay around in ways that it was not designed to do. Most pianos have between 17 and 22 tons of pressure pulling on the cast iron plate when they are to pitch, and tuned correctly. Allowing this kind of slack for too many years can cause structural problems or the sound board to flatten out. Both of these problems are usually either permanent or VERY, VERY expensive to fix. (Did I say VERY?)  

The cost of tuning a paino

it seems that some balk at the cost of having their piano tuned. While it varies greatly from tuner to tuner and region to region, a safe assumption would be between $90-$150 for a standard tuning. What you need to remember is the cost of not "tuning" it. Typically when your tuner comes to visit he will check your piano over, this can nip some major problems in the bud(I refer to my prior post MICE!). It can also keep other problems from forming. We need to remember these things are mostly wood, when tuned properly they are designed to have around 17,000lbs. of force from the strings. If we let them get out of these parameters they can warp pr crack pr things can come unglued over time.
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