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Pink, with unlimited amount of time , I suppose one could learn to do anything!...rebuild a transmission, do a little brain surgery, even properly regulate a grand action

Good luck

Pink, Rickster has a point about this forum.

I myself experience the same situation. I really can't know why this is happening. Only the ones that are acting so can explain if they honestly decide to.

But it is what it is. Hobbyists, pianists with enthusiasm in tuning (like me), and similar are not welcomed here.

Why are people so quick to tar everybody in a group with the same brush?

Beyond Ricksters's point, in my case, it has almost turned into a form of embargo against my posts.

Hakki, I am a DIYer, and am gradually working thru learning how to recondition my 125 year old upright, and will be slowly picking up tuning too. And I have to agree with most of the techs here, you are a bit of a pain in the neck. You beat subjects to death and if you don't like the answers, given as best these people can, you ask the question again in a more insistent manor. I have stopped reading the threads you have started as they are too painful to read. My thought being as I read them, why do these people put up with having to answer your insistent and not very different question threads, where you have used some nuance as an excuse for starting another new thread.

Just one beginners view of what I see. I do see some resistance in SOME techs to cooperating with DIYer, but it is not too bad as they eventually recognize that you are sincere about learning the correct way to work on pianos, and even if you screw the piano up, it isn't a great loss, if you are working on a non valuable instrument.

OTOH, this can have a negative impact against OPs that started these threads, that I can cause these threads to come to a halt.

Tuneless, I am not a DIY. I am an accomplished amateur pianist with an enthusiasm in discussing things related to piano tuning.

I don't want to go into this again but the situation here where I live (Ankara, Turkey) is different from the western world.

The piano is not our culture. Almost more than 99% of the population has never in their life time has seen a piano being performed live. The city I live has a population of about 5 million and I have access to only 3 tuners.

So, from time to time I come here and ask questions here that these 3 tuners are not able to answer.

At times, I get different answers from different posters. At such a situation I have to find the answer that is at least supported by the majority of tuners here.

To justify some of the answers I got, there might be situations as you refer that I might have asked the same question in a different way.

But, and this is really a big BUT.
All this has nothing to do with the tuners on this forum.

On the contrary I have expressed it a few times that how I was grateful for all the replies and that this forum existed.

So, to me, I think that my posts, be it a language thing or some other reasons, are considerably misinterpreted.

OTOH, there is not much I can do against prejudiced posts against me. I just feel unhappy when such a thing happens.

Of course there has been some unpleasant posts between some of the posters and me, that I would have not preferred them to be so. Inevitably, I had to respond to some personal attacks against me.

But, again, Rickster should have a point here. He is more experienced about this forum than me.

In my professional forum -- IATN, Independent Automotive Technicians Network, there is a similar thread. There is frequently scorn heaped on those who go Autozone, get a code read in their vehicle and then replace a bunch of parts that do not address the problem. Then they likely return the parts as "defective." BUT what I pointed out in MY professional forum I think also applies here. We (Automotive shop owners)/you (RPTs) see the DIY failures. We/you tend to remember the most egregious of these failures. What about all those who maintain their piano reasonably well and are invisible to you? Neither group sees a representative sample.

In most every field these individuals do exist. There are those who can do an expert restoration on a 1920 Buick/1920 Steinway grand and might have been clueless when they started and their first questions might make you roll your eyes. It will probably take them much longer than it would those who do it for a living, but people spend their time in far worse ways!

Granted, those that ask questions and have no interest in informative and constructive answers are a lost cause, but when the answer is "You can't do it, call an expert," I don't consider that a constructive answer. "Be prepared for a lengthy project, a challenging and expensive hobby for these specific reasons..." that is often totally fair. Better that than playing video games all night or snort crack.

I am fortunate that my piano tech has been very tactful with me about what I don't know, helpful with advice, sold me a tuning hammer cheap he no longer uses, and etc. etc. I got to bail him out when he got over his head on a brake job he was doing in the dirt at his house. He has come around to telling me "Don, I think you can do it." Sometimes he says "you probably CAN do it but do you really want to? This is what it will take."

I'm surprised you haven't reached the conclusion yet that you're better off tuning your piano yourself, for example by buying tunelab and using it properly, not like one of those university tuners you described. If you somehow insist on tuning by ear you can use tunelab (or any of the professional ETD's) as a mentor in the beginning.

It's not as difficult to tune your own piano as some of the professionals claim it is.

To be able to go out to any customer's piano you've never seen, tune it in under 2 hours, and leave it stable enough to last for another 6 months or year is probably what they are taking about: that is indeed very difficult and takes a long time to learn.

Kees

Kees,

The last Russian tuner did use the Tunelab in a wrong way indeed. I am hoping to get him use it properly next time.

Before his visit, I will most probably come here (again) and ask about (probably several questions again) how to setup Tunelab for a Kawai RX-2 piano. Then, I will hope that I can explain what I learned from here to him ( not an easy thing considering my limited communication with him due to language problems.). Or I will try to use his iPad myself to set it up if he allows me.

Pink, first my apologies for quasi hi-jacking the thread.

As for your question, considering that a grand piano (new) would be quite expensive compared to your current piano, I would not attempt to tune it myself.

If you are considering to buy a second hand relatively cheap grand that is not at a very good condition, and want to keep it, then it will be your own decision whether to try to tune/regulate it yourself or not.