Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum What an ordeal!!!!

So.....my regular tuner for 25 years started declining in his tuning skills, and I started looking around for a new tuner a couple years ago. Another local tuner, who was excellent and tuned all by ear, retired due to illness. I read a bunch of reviews and chose a woman who seemed to have lots of recommendations. She tuned for me last November and did a fantastic job, and seemed really knowledgeable, and she was very nice.

I had her back yesterday and again, the tuning is excellent. I didn't get a chance to sit down and play it until last night. I was actually in an adjacent room when I head a couple keys played by my cat, LOL, but then I heard a SLAM and I jumped and headed for the music room. The fallboard had closed, but...I have a slow-close mechanism, so???

The fallboard wasn't even properly attached!!! Or I should say, one side was attached, and the other side, which is the attachment to the slow-close, wasn't properly seated. What the....?? When I investigated what the heck was going on, I saw that the one side was just propped on the slow-close arm, and that the screw which normally goes in the hole on the arm, was horribly stripped. To put it mildly, I flipped out.

I have no idea why my tuner would have even made a decision to remove the fallboard, because all she was doing was tuning. When she was done and on her way out, she never even mentioned anything about the fallboard. She just left after I paid her. Not one word that anything was wrong. So I called her and asked what had happened to the fallboard, and she denied the whole thing. Seriously, unless there was a poltergeist poking around the music room, or someone broke into my home, took the fallboard off, and then improperly reinstalled it, LOL....I think it's same to assume it was done by the tuner. It's not just a lift-off fallboard, you have to remove 2 screws first. And I'm pretty sure my cat didn't do it.

I texted a couple techs right away and they were super supportive. After having my nervous breakdown, LOL, I went to bed. This morning, with a clearer head, I ended up removing the brass piece that had the stripped screw in it, and I noticed it was slightly bent. So I ended up taking the piece to a local machine shop and, THANK GOODNESS, the tech there was able to straighten the bent part, which freed up the screw. I went home and reinstalled everything and all is back to normal, no harm done except giving me a heart attack and hours of investigation. I also fired the tuner via text message, lol.

Why would any tuner in their right mind act like this???

I have to run out, I'm buying lunch for the machine shop, LOL!

Yes, that certainly sounds like quite an ordeal, and not a good one, though somewhat of a happy ending.

I wonder if maybe your last tuner was telling the truth, that she didn't mess with the fallboard, and one of the other techs did? A possibility?

Good thing your cat didn't get injured by falling fallboard. But I doubt the incident actually hurt anything, other than your feelings.

All the best!

Rick

Could it even have been caused by a tech? I don't know anything about acoustic pianos, but thinking outside the box here, wonder if it wasn't a kind of mechanical failure waiting to happen. Cunningham piano manufacturer might be able to shed some light on how this may have been possible.

No, no possibility at all that anyone else did it, the fall board was perfectly fine the morning before she got here. I’ve had no problems with it at all.

What it mainly did was take hours of my time that I just don’t have to give right now. I’ve just been incredibly busy this entire spring, and thought I was finally done with all the work I needed to do to free me for my summer program. So it was really frustrating that this happen.

No, that’s an impossibility. I haven’t had any other technicians here, she’s the only person that has been tuning this piano for the last year. The fall board had to of been removed by this tuner. I’m at this piano every single day for hours, I know how it functions. I’ve had absolutely no problem with the slow close fall board, it’s very basic, completely uncomplicated. The only possible way that it got in this condition was that, for some reason, she unscrewed both screws, took off the fall board, and simply didn’t know how to put it back on. She put the one screw in properly, but she didn’t seat the left side slow close mechanism, and she obviously put the screw in and kept turning and turning until the screw was stripped. She just didn’t know what she was doing and had no idea how to reinstall the fall board. She could’ve told me that she didn’t know how to do it, that would’ve been fine because I do know how to do it. But she left without mentioning anything at all. The fall board was hanging on the left side, it was obvious that this was not properly installed.

😹😹. How frustrating! Glad it is now fixed

I just can’t believe this happened! Mercury retrograde.🙄

The Cosmos always interferes when you don’t have time.
Ever need to print a document when you didn’t have time? That’s when you get a paper jam — in three places in the printer

If the tuner is an RPT you might consider reporting her to that organization. The least she should do is pay you for the cost of fixing the screw.

I don't know how the slow close fallboard mechanisms work, but is it possible that the screw just came loose by itself? The reason I bring this up is because I've had several instances where some screws inside my Jansen bench came loose and were incredibly hard to put back and tighten. My tech actually had to do it. And those benches are supposedly of very high quality.

I wouldn't have fired her. Better to absorb the loss and keep your eye on things for future . . .

This was my fault for not employing an RPT. Every tuner and technician I've ever had was an RPT. My long-time tech/tuner started getting a bit lax in his skills, or possibly his hearing is going. My other tuner retired. I have a third RPT who I use mainly as a technician/voicer and he commands quite high prices (which are completely justified, he's excellent) so I felt I didn't need that for just a tuning. She got great reviews as tuner, but she's not an RPT.

Mea culpa.

Well, I wouldn't have fired her if she hadn't outright lied to me. If she would have told me "Hey, I removed the fallboard for such and such reason, but I'm not sure how to reinstall it, do you know how?" that would have been perfectly fine! But she left it in that condition, didn't give me a heads up, and then lied to me, saying she had no idea how it got that way.

In our phone conversation, she even said "So the left screw is stripped?" I never told her anything about the screws, I just said it was hanging, and I never specified it was the left side. She knew exactly what happened. I couldn't overlook that, who wants to emply someone who outright lies to them? She could have apologized when I called her, and fessed up, and I would have kept her, but she didn't. She said she didn't do it. I don't appreciate gaslighting. And it's a simple impossibility that this happened any other way. I dust and polish weekly, the fallboard was completely normal since I got the instrument. And my cat can't use a screwdriver, he doesn't have opposable thumbs.

You're probably right in your assumptions. But it'd be just so interesting to see how she handled the job in future . . .

It was just such a weird experience, nothing like this has ever happened to me in the piano world, lol. It was disconcerting.

Interesting?? If a tech causes a problem, doesn't own up to it, lies about it, and costs the client time and money no reasonable person would hire that tech in the future.

So sorry this happened, EbonyK. I hope you’re able to find another tuner/technician that works out.

Yea, I feel the same way, Lisa. If someone lies to me, and I find out about it, I loose confidence in that person, big-time. I'm sure there are other RPTs and tuners out there.

All the best!

Rick

I have another tuner on deck, she works at the shop where I bought my very first piano when I was 30, and I've known her for years. Everything will be fine, and thanks for all the support, everyone! This was such a strange thing to happen, it completely took me by surprise.

That's just nuts!!!

That's what my teacher said yesterday after I told her the story. She was shocked, it's just SO weird!