No doubt many player piano rebuilders are feeling the squeeze.  Our
costs are going up and my income is not keeping pace.  The prices
rebuilders charge have gone way up, but so has the amount of work
required to restore these instruments.  One could have the most
efficient shop going and still the typical player upright could
require 200+ hours of work, plus cost of the material.

It's been ten months since I sold my last rebuilding job, and it was
a player mechanism I swore I'd never do again.  I sold about $2000 worth
of player rebuilding tools to the trade in the early to mid nineties.
I have sold nothing in the last nine years.  Adds in the AMICA Bulletin
and posting here on MMD have brought me no sales.

Having given up on making and selling tools to this trade, I sold out
my custom-made leather punch and multipurpose tools (valve facing
center hole punch, etc.) on eBay to people in the leather trade.  The
other tools I sell are so specialized for the player piano business
that eBay is not an option.  Some of my tools are now in the scrap metal
bin.

The piano business is not faring much better.  People have gone more
and more towards digital pianos.  The supply of acoustic pianos now far
exceeds the demand for them.  Pianos made in China and Indonesia are
flooding an already saturated piano market.  I never thought I'd live
to see the day Korea and Japan get clobbered by cheaper pianos, but
it's happening.  Young Chang is out of business, and that's just one
example.

I get offered free spinets, consoles and grands all the time and
I turn down more than 90% of them because I can no longer sell them at
a profit.  I went on a "shop Jihad" recently, taking a sledge hammer
and chain saw to many pianos which had become nothing more than "shop
clogging albatrosses."  The next dumpster I get will be filled with
player piano parts I can't use nor sell or give away.  In this New York
metropolitan area it is crazy to pay for rental space to store things
which are now virtually worthless.

Piano tuning and servicing have become less and less a priority to
piano owners.  People can buy a shiny new Chinese made piano less
expensively than it would cost them to pay to have a vintage piano
rebuilt, and this is adversely affecting the rebuilding business.

There is also much good news for player rebuilders and its even better
than saving money on car insurance, although that's nice too.  The
skills required for player piano servicing and rebuilding are useful
and transferable to many other areas.  Most player piano rebuilders
are more versatile as a piano technicians than most in that business.

My shop can be put to use for furniture repair, finish restoration,
refinishing, woodworking, metal polishing, rust removal, many types of
repairs if need be.  I still have more than enough piano work to keep
me busy.  Business did get slow this summer, but I had time to do work
on my 120-year-old barn workshop and I started up an eBay business.
It's surprising how many unnecessary expenses can be cut back or
eliminated altogether.

If the player rebuilding business makes a resurgence, I will be back.
But right now, being a full time player rebuilder would put me in the
poor house.

Bill Maguire