Eric, that factory has since been turned into a restaurant. I've toured the S&C factory a few times while it was still in business. The Everett piano Factory as well. It's cool to look around at those HUGE beams holding the building together made out of solid wood something or another... Very nice buildings.

Tuned a handful of Yamaha stuff today for a dealer. 3 T118's, 2 Cable Nelson's, and a Gulbransen console. Sometimes its nice to tune new piano. No false beats to struggle with. Although, the tuning pins on the Cable Nelsons gave me a work-out.

Tuned a D at 7am, then my 9am butt cord replacement blew me off, so I did some gardening, then tuned a Cable Nelson at 5pm, tuned a harpsichord at 7pm, and attended a student/faculty percussion concert at the U. First act: three students clapping. Second act: 10 students alternating playing a dual 4 drum kit. One student would appear out of the audience and blend right in with those already playing, then another would leave, and "blend out". Third act: Steinway D and B, two digital pianos, six different types of marimbas played by faculty, guest artists, and students. Sometimes the marimbas were bowed with a cello bow. The pianos and keyboards provided a basic underlying and ever changing beat. Cool stuff. Love those concerts at the U.

Spent the last 3 days with some stomach flue, 12 hours driving the bus, fever broke this morning. It feels good to be back alive. I only hope no one gets it, it's horrible.

But over the week end, I spent some time out in the garage stripping ...ok, lower your eyelids... it was a piano bench, those thing take forever to strip.

Sorry to hear that Monster. Hope you feel better soon.

So far today, tuned 2 home pianos. A Kawai UST-7 and a 52" Schimmel vertical. Killing time at the moment. Have a 4 PM Steinway grand tuning then a concert tuning at 6 PM with only 1 hour to tune it. Yesterday, tuned a RX-7, a Yammie M1A, an Everett studio and a lousy Cable console with a tone so brittle that it could pop the cork off from a champagne bottle. Couldn't even get needles into it. But, I did manage to cut the tone about in half.

Drove 50 miles and had a no show to get into a church. No cell service.
Finished up a Samick 161, new knuckles and regulate and tune.
Appraised an old Gulbransen consle.
Repaired a gritty squeaky pedal on a Yamaha C2. Screws needed to be tightened in the damper section.
Lady called back on the no show and said they forgot to open the door. I will return at my convenience.

Made a new bench top and stained. Start spraying tomorrow.

Tuned a nice Yamaha C3, a Schimmel grand about 7'4" or so, a Schimmel vertical, a Kawai GM-10, A Kawai K-15 E, another Schimmel vertical. Plus, regulated lost motion, fiddled with adjusting pedals, removing debris from within some of the pianos, taking pictures of sounding boards with cracks in them for the manufacturer and some other fun stuff.

flue: noun
...
2. any duct or passage for air, gas, or the like.
...

You have my sincere condolences and wishes for a speedy recovery.

And be sure to use duct tape....

Thanks JPDelmore, it feels good to be human again.

Glad you're recovering, Les. You never know how REALLY miserable you felt until you start getting better!

no pianos today. . .a day home with our 11 month old twins and our 5 year old.

Speaking of health matters, yesterday I went to the Free Clinic (Baldwin SF10).

Today, one of the earliest pianos I rebuilt, a 5' 8" Hardman. Tuning needed a little touch-up, because it has been 8 years since I last tuned it, but otherwise pretty good. The rebuild is looking a bit aged after about 25 years, but I am not ashamed of the work that I did on it, even though I would do a few things differently now.

Then a Steinway B, which I regulated and tuned last year.

Today, tuned a Yammie C-3 and 3 Kawai UST-9's. Came home early for lunch and stayed home. Made lots of office calls, jamming in a few last minute tuning requests, scheduled a new church too. Answered a few business emails and then, came in here. Spent most of the afternoon doing office work. Honestly for real, I did!

Hey boys. Been busy for that few weeks but a story to tell:

Went on vaction to Fl with the wife, Had it scheduled for months then was informed St Louis Symphony was to perform at a U I service and needs babysitter for Liszt program on the day I return, a SUNDAY. U is 1hr 15min from the barn so wife drives one vehicle to my favorite motel/restraunt/bar nearby that spoils me to death and I leave my work vehicle there for a week as we go to FL. Come back the Sat before, take wife to dinner at nice restraunt, wine etc., spend night in motel, Sunday morning she take off to home with me wishing I could too. Duty calls. S&S D is flat, usually let the pitch float a bit but contract says A442 so early Sunday morning I go over it twice, fiddle with sustenudo, unicorda alignment, voicing, adjust rep spring pressure/drop off, get the thing purring like a race horse, out of there at noon. Front people for orchestra to show up 2:30PM, then rehersal at 3:30PM, yurs truly back on stage at 5:30 for touch up, concert at 7.

I am cut loose to twiddle my thumbs from noon till 5:30 on a Sunday, so sit in Panera Bread parking lot napping and surfing the web in turn till I get a call 3:30PM. Music directors says, "You are not going to believe this: Front people show up and say 'you can move the piano off stage now, we won't be needing it for this program.' 'Say what?' says he, no they say, this program does not require piano."

I tell him, "my wife is gonna kill u, right after she kills me. And, despite how much I love u, u owe me a LOT of money."

MORAL: alway verify with the guy holding the baton. Forget the freaking contract.

Oh man, Sam!
U got yourself in a jam!
But, still, you quite the ham.
Good dinner better n spam.

Hey, you guys are slacking out there. Are you actually working????

Today, I tuned 4. Was going to tune 5 but, my back got to bothering me to much so, I quit. I tuned a full sized (whatever that is ) Baldwin upright, raising pitch from 437-440 and changed the humidifier wicks. I also moved the humidistat over by about 4" to the left of the bucket to allow the humidifier to send out a bit more humidity into the piano before the heater rods turn on.

Then, I tuned a Kawai UST-9. 3 of them actually. I started to tune another one but soon discovered loose tuning pins so, I am dealing with correcting that now.

Then, got my son set up with regulation on another of the UST-9's. Shallow key dip= bobbling hammers... He regulated lost motion too. Then, replaced the piece of felt under the middle pedal that fell out leaving the spring rubbing up against the pedal itself. SQUEEEEEEK SQUEEEEEEK SQUEEEEEEK! Have to remove the action on it tomorrow and lubricate the damper rod behind the action to stop that from squeaking too.

No wonder I'm tired! Making myself more tired just thinking about tomorrow.

OOPS! I forgot one! I also tuned a Kawai GM-10 this morning too so that makes 5 1/2.

6:45 am Steinway B at the U tuned before classes started
Knabe PD 420 (continental style vert) RP 64 cents to 440. She paid $400 for it and the PD 128 still works!
Wurl Spinet RP 200 cents to 440
Cable Nelson RP 125 cents - left at 435 due to soft pins and rust
Gulbransen Spinet tuned every year and holds right at pitch

Oh, and after tuning # 4, a car passed by me with two girls laying on the hood, hanging on by the wipers. It turned around and as it passed me again I yelled to them "That's pretty dumb". The car stopped and the girls got in and it sped off. Stupid teenagers!

Then I received an email ..... Roland would probably love to replace spinets with:

http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=1076

Oh, to be in Florida in the Spring...

Drove to NOLA Saturday, a week ago, for PTG meeting...roads PACKED with SpringBreakers...Cops thick as flies on I-10...

God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.

No work here, just a nasty stomach flu that has a tendency to be recurring... some of my friends has had it 3 times this Spring :-O

Three concert tunings were shuffled over to a friend of mine, I myself is back for bed now, trying to ride the nasty bug out.

Went for a morning ride with 20 far younger cyclists and suffered like a dog...but California is so beautiful this spring that I loved every minute of it! Green everywhere, punctuated by lupine and poppies on the hillsides.

Then I got a dose of reality: 2nd no-show of the week(had one on Monday, too, with bill for missed appointment stamped and ready to go in the mail tomorrow...). I was able to shuffle my schedule and move my next client ahead, and squeeze the no show in after my 2nd no show (of the day, 3rd of the week) didn't show.

WTF???? I mean, it's damned disrespectful to "forget" an appointment. How many methods of keeping track of these things does someone need, anyway? I-phones, computers, netbooks, PDAS, c'mon, folks! This is about respecting other peoples' time!

The 2nd one today showed up as I was about to leave, and as he was a warranty "freebie" for one of my contracting stores, I explained to him that I would be billing the store for the lost appointment, which effectively voids his freebie. But I WILL give him a slightly lower rate for his first tuning.

Eased a bunch of keys and tuned a Hallet Davis made by who knows in a mega plant in china.

Cleaned up, pitch adjusted, teflonned knuckles on a Baldwin R from the 60s. Nice piano, though a tad noisy in it's late 40s.

Sleep sounds good right about now!

Vose upright from the late 1890's. It was a freebie they got from a friend - if that's being a friend? Hey, only broke 3 strings! C8 and 2 bass bi's... was already missing a couple of bass bi's along with a couple of key heads. Man, talk about some tubby sounding bass strings, omg.

Dave, I finally resorted to calling everyone the night before. As much as I HATE wasting my time doing this, it has virtually eliminated the majority of those that would normally otherwise forget their appointments. If they still forget, I usually will give them a 2nd chance but, if it happens again, I will tell them to call someone else as I have better things to do than remind them and then waste my time and money for people could care less about our time.

Get this one! I was told one time and then flew off the handle afterward; "you people can't keep busy anyway can you? What are you tuning, 1 or 2 a week? I figured you could easily return later today because you would go home and set waiting for the phone to ring again anyway." Can you imagine the guts that person had to say that to me after missing their appointment?

You bet I did!!!! I know what you're thinking! I was so pissed off. I said, you know what? You are totally irresponsible and completely ignorant about pianos and piano technicians. You have no common sense and courtesy whatsoever. Regardless of how busy anyone is, that does not give YOU the right to just not show up for a scheduled appointment because you happen to think that your time is more important and valuable to you, than mine is to me. Here is my bill for a full missed tuning and now, you can kiss off and call someone else to service your POS.

I do not fly off the handle often but, when if you say that to me, I will so then, watch out.

Boy, that took a lot of nerve to say that to you. I would have gotten a little bent about that one. Maybe even more than a little.

I'll be calling people this morning before I hit the road...not my favorite thing to do, but better than a missed appointment!

Today, tuned a very nice Yamaha M1A. Then, off to my college again where I tuned 2 Kawai K-2's and a UST-9. Had my son regulate the dip on 2 out of 3 of these pianos along with regulating some lost motion. (More bobbling hammers.) Then, off hoofing it around the building making sure I didn't miss anything. Have 3 left to do there tomorrow morning then, I'm done there again for now...

My 8am tomorrow has a note in his file that reads: "Glued loose jack, Warr. Needed pitch raise, but didn't want to pay for it. He called his piano teacher who said her tuner would charge XX. He would not pay XXX for me to raise pitch so I left. I remember this guy. We went back and forth on why his piano needed a pitch raise, and why it costs more. We couldn't agree on a price, so I suggested (nicely) he pay the teacher's tuner XX and left. So now, 1 year later, he has scheduled a tuning with me and he hasn't used the piano teacher's tuner.

On my confirmation call I determined he wouldn't be home till 8:25, which makes me late for everything else, so I told him I'd need to reschedule. I also confirmed that he will now pay XXX for a pitch raise. Notes in the file come in handy.

Putting my other hat on this weekend ... installing intake gaskets, upper & lower and valve cover gaskets on my M-I-L's 97 LaSabre. Then lower ball joints, front rotors & brake pads.

You can come do ours next Monster.