So you just found
a good used piano......
BUYER
BEWARE
Even though a piano may
be in good condition, old or new, it may not be a
particularly good piano regardless of price. Buying a
piano is like buying a used car. We may be able to drive
but rarely have the expertise to judge what's "under the
hood". A piano has 10,000 parts under the hood. When you
find a piano you like, have a piano technician check it
out for you before purchasing.
What should I look
for when I buy a used piano?
First of all, the
outside is the last consideration in order of
importance! It's the insides which make a piano sound
beautiful. Open the top of any piano and see if the
hammers look old, worn and grooved? These are red flags.
Look at the thickness of the felt at key 88. That is
often a good indicator of the whole piano. If the felt
at the tip is flat, and there is virtually no thickness
between the striking point and the wood molding below,
this piano has had long playing time and significant
reshaping of hammers. It is not likely a good investment
for the average purchaser.
It is wise to look at
the piano as a machine with many moving parts. The
"internal parts" make the piano work. How do they look?
Are they clean and neat, or is there a lot of rust on
strings and tuning pins, dingy looking hammers, dampers
which have compressed so much they have wrapped around
the strings. If you can take the fallboard off and lift
up a key, look at the felt and paper punchings on the
two pins (front rail pin and balance rail pin) to see if
there is evidence of "critter tampering"- as in
eating..... If the "internal parts" look bad, you can be
sure they are just that.
Look for evidence of mouse activity. Mouse droppings,
rust on small segments of strings, and on bridge pins
often indicate there has been mouse activity. Mice will
also eat the paper and felt punchings under the keys and
gnaw on the wood of the key frame and sometimes on
hammers. They will often use these "supplies" to build
nests.
This may really not be a problem. I have seen pianos
with soundboard cracks so large one could see through to
the floor or wall. If there are no buzzing sounds caused
by loose ribs or by parts of the soundboard buzzing
against one another, a crack, especially a small one is
not a great matter of concern. The older the piano the
less musical quality is left in the piano in all
respects. This needs always be kept in mind. A piano
does have a finite useful life.
Technology has come to the aid of the tuning field as
it has in most every arena of life, but it never
replaces the human ear as final judge of correctness.
There are several reputable electronic devices on the
market (TuneLab, Cybertuner, Verituner, Sanderson
Acutuner). A qualified technician will tune as well with
aid from an electronic device as will a strictly aural
tuner.
