This is turning out to be a very fun project – I’ve got more pictures too, so stay tuned to this rebuilding process! PLATE INSTALLATION VIDEO – CLICK HERE! Here’s a pic of the plate having been hoisted out of the piano (but still click the vid above to see me putting it back in!)
The customer just wanted the basics done (new strings, hammers, dampers, cleaning, etc.). They didn’t want new key tops, even though these have very noticeable chips in them. Some people just like keeping that original ivory look – that’s cool with me. I love the feel of ivory when I’m playing, especially clean ivories! So…
Now for the bridges. They didn’t need to be recapped, but I did need to clean them up. Hopefully you can see the before and afters here: There’s a bass bridge as well which is not depicted in these pictures. If the below picture were bigger the bass bridge would show up in the bottom…
Here is what we did to the pin block to reinforce the tuning stability. It didn’t need to be replaced, but we did sure up the tuning pins by 1st, drilling little counter sinks into each tuning pin hole: Then we reinsert the old tuning pins just slightly and fill those counter sinks with…
I was hired by Vince Mrykalo to rebuild this piano. It’s quite a blessing – to learn at the feet of a 40+ year veteran of the industry (“at his feet” is, of course, figurative speaking…not that I am actually sitting at his feet…) I didn’t take many pics of the beginning of the process,…
Sometimes we find remnant of mice (and other times we find live ones…that’s when it gets really creepy.) See that pile of debris in the top right hand corner of the picture above? If you can’t see it, then this picture should illustrate clearly what I was trying to show: Yeah, needless to say, the…
Some of you saw my post on Facebook that I recently won the bid to service 260 pianos on BYU campus (it actually turned out to be 270!) So let me clarify: I will not be replacing the very competent full-time salaried piano technicians at BYU Piano Shop. They are responsible for all pianos owned…
Since the industry of the tuning and repair of pianos is unregulated, it is important to rely upon professional credentials and training when hiring a piano technician. A Registered Piano Technician (RPT) has passed a series of rigorous examinations on the maintenance, repair, and tuning of pianos. Only RPTs are authorized by The Piano Technicians Guild to…
I received a call from a new client, named Gabriel Gerena (see his Youtube Channel – quite a singer!). He had just purchased a new Young Chang grand (~6′) and it had some nasty sounds in the tone that other techs couldn’t hear or didn’t know how to fix. I fell into the latter of…
Maxine Grimm of Tooele turned 99 on May 18th, and what she wanted for her birthday was to get her piano tuned (I should say one of her 5 pianos!) It was fun to see her positive reaction to the newly vacuumed and tuned piano. I also spent a few minutes teaching her about the…