Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Neat story about a customer of ours

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
I am (unfortunately) a lover of older uprights.  We recently took in an old piano that was from 1889 that was in really, really, bad shape at first glance. Waiting for the opportunity to go to the local dump, I took a shot at some new refinishing products, just to see how they worked and “low and behold” the finish under the black and grey exterior was an absolutely beautiful burled walnut.

I spent the next few days working on the finish while a tuner friend began to “try his hand” at the older action parts and such. It was more a labor of love and to gain some experience than anything else. After a few bucks in parts, the piano was sounding pretty good. By this time we had named the piano, you know guys have to name everything for some reason, Carla. The tech was leaving for a few days and I put a note on the piano that said “I’ll miss you while you’re gone” and signed the note “Carla”.

The next week a lady came in searching for a particular piano that we had in the back of the store, we went back and after playing the piano that she had come to see started to leave and noticed “Carla” over to the side. She immediately walked over to the piano, asked who Carla was and I explained that it was just a name we had made up as a joke and it stuck. She began to cry and told me that her twin sisters name was Carla and that she would buy the piano when we were finished with it.

After we delivered the piano and some months later the customer called to tell me that only a few days after she got the piano in her home she was diagnosed with cancer but, the piano had made her recovery so much easier because she felt and immediate attatchment to it.

Sometimes, its the unexpected surprise that makes it all worth while.

Ric Overton

Piano moving is an art form

Friday, May 14th, 2010

We have talked about some basics in Piano regulation, Piano tuning and Piano voicing this week.  I wanted to talk about Piano Moving and tell you some things that you may or may not be aware of.

While PianoSD uses Paul McCloud at Accutone Piano Service, www.pianoservsd.com for our all of our piano techinician needs.  We use Precision Piano Moving at www.PrecisionPianoMoving.net for all of our moves and heres a few reasons why.

A few of the things that have to be seen and realized about moving pianos is that it is important to understand where the piano is now in relation to where it is going.  For example if it is coming out of a home that is in a humid area or dry area it has to be  taken into consideration.

Precision Piano Movers located in the PianoSD building in Mission Valley, San Diego, Ca moves a lot of pianos every week.  We see them coming from very dry areas moving to very humid areas and vice versa.  When a piano is leaving one climate for another, or from a room that is cool to a fully sunlit room the piano needs to go through an acclimation time of up to three months depending on the extremes in changes.  After the acclimation time the piano should be tuned and if needed a regulation, and voicing would be in order.

Upright pianos are generally the easiest to move.   If the piano is going upstairs Precision would simply bring the necessary tools and equipment to do this.  Of course, some “upright” pianos are 36″ tall while others may be up to 52″.  This is  important information for your movers to know BEFORE they arrive to move your piano.  If the legs are decorative, they are wrapped up and blankets are put around the piano for safe keeping and then the piano is placed on a four wheel dolly and taken to the truck for transportation to its destination.

Grand pianos can be a little more challenging.  Most of the time one leg is taken off and balanced on the lyre that has been very quilted for strength.  It is laid on its side and stood upright.  Then the other two legs and lyre come off .  It is blanketed and put on a skid board, transferred to a dolly and then put on the truck for transportation.  The important thing is how many steps is it going down (or up) and what kind of equipment should be used needs to be understood BEFORE the piano is moved.

Regardless of whether the customer is using Precision Piano Moving or some other company, it is important to note that you should NEVER trust someone who is not a professional piano mover to move your piano and MOST DEFINITELY do not move it alone.  To many injuries and to many accidents are caused every year by people who try to do this by themselves.

Drop by sometime we would love to meet you.

Ric Overton

Piano Regulation

Monday, May 10th, 2010

In yesterday’s blog I discussed piano tuning, today I thought I might touch on regulating a piano.

Generally speaking, regulation has little to do with the tone of the piano but, more to do with the way the piano feels while you are playing it.  Each part of the piano is made of wood and wool/felt with some metal parts.  On occasion the metal part needs small amounts of dry lubricant which can be applied by a technician only to help the parts move more freely.

At PianoSD.com we employ Accutone Piano Service, Paul McCloud who is a certified technician and can do this type of  procedure where he takes each of the 88 keys and weighs them to be sure the down weight (the amount of weight it takes to push the piano key) is correct.  He also measures the up weight (the velocity the key returns to its correct position) and makes adjustments where necessary. This can be a very tedious process because the piano technician has to insure that each piece of the piano is free to move.  Dry lubricant has to be applied at the right pivot points in order to obtain the maximum benefits for the piano.

As I said in my opening that regulation will not change the tone of the piano although it may appear to if you had a completely unregulated piano to start with and the technician brings it back to its proper regulation.  Paul McCloud of Accutone Piano Service here in Mission Valley at PianoSD.com will take each key individually and begin the process of being sure that each key not only weighs the right weight but, also the keys are free to move up and down and the hammers are free to move and play.

A proper regulation should take a couple of days 8-12 hours to complete if it is in really bad condition but after that the piano will most likely fell better than the day it was delivered to your home.  It will feel much more balanced and almost alive.  You can reach Paul McCloud of Accutone Piano Tuning at www.pianoservsd.com.

If you have questions regarding piano regulation I would be glad to help you.

Stop by sometime we would love to meet you

Ric Overton

Questions, Comments Concerns…

Contact us! We'd love to hear from you... [contact-form 3 "Footer Contact Form"]
Join Our Mailing List
Sign up for the latest news, events, product information and sales alerts!
Email: