Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Donation Piano Needs to be Re-Strung

I know someone who wants to donate their older parlor grand piano,
but the last time it was tuned, several of the unwound strings broke.

So clearly, the piano will likely break more strings, if it is tuned again.

The owner was thinking about re-stringing the piano, but since this job
for a grand piano might cost $4,000-$10,000, I doubt this will ever happen!

So perhaps it's time for the dumpster, or trash bin for this one? Or maybe
some fire wood?

Or maybe they should just give it away for free, as a practice piano, for a beginning
piano tuner to experiment on, and practice techniques on?

Good idea to donate it. It likely needs much more than just strings though.

That's true.

And I would also add, that a practice piano for a beginner tuner/technician, should
be at least a decent instrument, so that the effectiveness of your techniques can
be heard and seen. Practicing on a piece of junk, with strings breaking all the time,
would be discouraging for most people.

OTOH, at least you would get plenty of string replacement practice, which would be
a good thing, actually!

It really depends on the quality of the piano and what it needs. A below-average quality instrument is probably best consigned to scrapping. There might be some possibility for a well-made instrument if it went to a technician in training. But there are too many people who donate pianos (or other things) because they do not want to pay for proper disposal.

Here is my article about the subject:
https://www.pianobuyer.com/article/piano-purgatory/

What is the brand, age, length and other details of condition?

I would be the most crazy thing to restring the old thing. It's like putting a new heart into a corpse... Close its eyes already, its already gone... They all fall in the end! RIP.

This piano is an 1913 Ivers and Pond, built in Boston. It spent many decades in a seaside
house, hence the salt corrosion of the strings, and the heavy string breakage.

A re-stringing might cost $4,000-$10,000, so I doubt this will ever happen!

Again, even a practice piano for a beginner tuner/tech needs to be at least a
decent instrument, for it to be worth the effort.

I see this piano as having one foot in the grave!

I've never seen that type of piano, so I don't know anything about its construction quality. I hate seeing pianos scrapped. There are people that need to practice how to do rebuilding and there are more than enough kids that need piano to practice on. Please find a way to donate the piano to someone or some organization.

I takes 1-2 days to restring a piano, maybe 3 days if you prefer a slower pace and have more details to work out. It doesn't need to cost $4k for a new set of strings to be installed. About $400 in material, and $800/day x 3 days (at an extremely slow pace) is around $3k. You don't need to move the piano, or even mess with the dampers.

Ivers and Pond made great uprights, but lousy grands. I would not bother since it doubtlessly needs more than just restringing. However, before going to the landfill it should have the lead removed from the keys and recycled. Lead is toxic. Could be 10-15 pounds of it in there.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

Water is toxic, if you drink enough of it.