I recently found what I think is the ultimate in incompetence.  We
recently got a Knabe grand in on trade.  The old guy was a do-it-
yourselfer and called us to find out what he needed to replace his
hammers in his piano.  We told him we needed the old hammers, to send
them in to make the new ones from.  His reply was that he had thrown
them away.

We would have to have the whole piano in to do the extensive measure-
ments needed to spec new hammers where there are none to go by.

It gets worse.

He intelligently gave up and bought a piano and traded in the Knabe.
It arrived.  It had brand new hammers in it -- that he put on.  There
was something terribly wrong with them, though: they all slanted the
same direction as the bass hammers.  They also were at the same level
as the bass hammers.

This made no sense to me until I realized what he had done.  He began
putting on the hammers from the bass end.  Fine.  He continued putting
on the bass hammers past the end of the bass section, as there were
about five or six spares.  The next hammer was drilled to slant the
other way to match the tenor strings, but he found that the first one
would not fit because he had not tossed out the spare bass hammers. So
he redrilled ALL the rest of the hammers to be like the bass hammers.

The middle section is all slanting at about 90 degrees to the strings.
He also noticed that the bass hammers had more length from shank to
crown so when he drilled the new ones the hole moved about 3/8" back
toward the tail.  Bass hammers are _supposed_ to be longer for the
overstrung bass strings being higher.

We will probably junk the piano since he also restrung it himself,
leaving all the grunge on the plate and not bothering to clean or shim
the soundboard.  He also tried to refinish it himself and it looks like
someone literally beat the piano with chains.  All the corner edges are
rounded off when he sanded through the veneer.  The casters were
replaced by office chair casters.  The junked piano will give further
life to three other Knabes that are missing this or that case part.

This demonstrates what I say.  Piano repair is not a job for the
untrained!

D. L. Bullock    Piano World    St. Louis

 [ The untrained young apprentice is told to ask the Master.
 [ The untrained incompetent doesn't care, and never will care.
 [
 [ The untrained piano aficionado can learn, and will learn,
 [ if the Master will patiently answer his questions.  If the
 [ art of piano rebuilding is dying, it's because the Master
 [ is unwilling to train another generation of artisans.
 [
 [ Don't say, "That's too difficult for you."  Heed the plea for
 [ knowledge, and have faith that the next generation will learn
 [ from you and other Masters.  -- Robbie