St. Gabriel Family of Catholic Parishes

$900 - vertical

This is a "full maintenance refurbishing” service! it includes:

* CORRECTIVE REGULATION

For this service, I will come to the church, remove the action and bring it back to my work shop. Here, I will fully lubricate and tighten all the moving parts of each key whippen (the “action” of each note). If there are any broken parts that can be easily repaired or replaced this will be done as part of the service, unless it is something more substantial. Usually the parts would be inexpensive and unless it were something major, or involving multiple key actions, would not impact the service price. The initial evaluation did not reveal any broken parts, however, the action currently is very noisy. This indicates that most of the parts of the action have worked their way loose, and while they are still holding together, there is far too much “play” resulting in noisy parts. In this situation, issues will continue to surface suck as double strike keys, sticky keys, and other irregularities. This services will eliminate most, if not all, of those issues that currently exist and also the conditions that cause them to arise.

*BASIC VOICING

The hammers on your piano do have significant grooving, and compact felt. The best place to start is to try to revive the existing felt. I am confident that for the most part, a much more satisfactory tone can be achieved through voicing. In this case, this grooving and compacted hammers are resulting in a very bring, almost piercing tone, so this service is highly recommended. Each hammer will be given individual attention to remove the grooving and then shape and soften the remaining felt. I think this alone will make a big difference in the sound of your piano, and is done most easily in combination with the corrective regulation, as it also requires removal and transportation of the action.

*BASIC CLEANING

Upon the return of the action, each key will be removed, and the area underneath vacuumed (there are always surprises under the keys!) and each key cleaned and returned to it’s original location. The serviced action is then reinstalled and each note is tested and any final adjustments needed are made. The function of each note, again, is guaranteed for as long as I am tuning your piano and any note that starts misbehaving will be readjusted for no cost. The only exception would be if a part were to actually break. This usually takes about 2-3 days to complete, but I imagine yours might take a little longer. I would need probably 2-4 hours in the rehearsal space when the action is returned to do the key cleaning/lubrication as well as make any final adjustments.

$500

This would be ONLY the corrective regulation described above.

$600

This would be ONLY the voicing process for the hammers in the piano as described above.

$250

This would involve ONLY the cleaning described above. The action would be removed (required to remove the keys) and each key cleaned and the areas in the piano revealed would be vacuumed out and then all parts returned.

$200

The knee board is missing on this piano. This covered a majority of the open area and makes the instrument considerably louder than it should be, especially in an enclosed space. For the safety of the choir’s hearing (as well as the music director’s) I highly recommend having this either found or fabricated. Construction and installation included in this quote.

$150 (also must have tuned at time of service).

Often pianos of this age develop issues with the tuning pins. As the wood in the pin block dries and contracts slightly, the pins may become loose, or otherwise inconsistent with the way they hold their place (and therefore the pitch of the string). At this time, I do not feel this is needed, but it is something that can be done in the future if it is determined that it is not holding a tune well and/or becomes more difficult to tune due to slipping tuning pegs.