The term “repairs” consists of three parts:
Repairs to the cabinet which will be carried out by a joiner or cabinet maker as well as a varnisher.
Major restoration involving a complete renewal of the interior of the piano (harmonic structure, mechanism and keyboard). That will require several months of full time work and is very onerous which is why this kind of work is only carried out on very high value pianos.
Repairs which I carry out on a regular basis are essentially for the mechanism and the keyboard but generally need to go back to the workshop for several days, even weeks.
Let us look at the most common repairs and the reasons for them:
As a result of excessive humidity and/or the mediocre quality of the materials and/or dirt, which can cause keys to touch each other or are silent , a “rubbery” touch or seized pivots, it will be necessary to change the pivots for all 88 notes. Each note has 3 pivots for upright pianos and 6 for a grand piano.
For the same reasons, the many springs in the mechanism may have produced verdigris and will have to be replaced.
In the event of moth in the textiles, all the straps and felt pieces (upper and lower) of the mechanism and the keyboard can be destroyed, when they will have to be replaced, one by one, otherwise it will not be possible to play the piano.
As a consequence of mice and the corrosive action of their urine, damage can be extremely rapid and wide ranging. It can have destroyed the strings and jammed the pivots. Furthermore, these little animals can nibble, thereby destroying the straps and felt pieces, not to mention their droppings which can jam the mechanism and the keyboard.
Of course, there is natural wear and the more you play the more the parts will wear. However, in this actual case it is often about progressive and much more even wear. The mortises and the woollen felt pieces on the heads of the hammers are the only parts which wear “naturally”. The first must be replaced when the keys foul each other, and the second when they retain the impression of the strings and become stretched and sagging, profoundly altering the sound of the piano. It is essential to sand them down and if they are too worn, to refurbish the heads of the hammers.
Keys can break, rarely but entirely possible. They cannot be replaced and so have to be repaired.
Strings can break, sometimes even during tuning by a conscientious tuner taking the greatest care to avoid this mishap. It will not be due to an error on his part but to a weakness in the string which will also suffer from wear.
Occasionally strings can “buzz” (like a sort of sizzling sound) and they must be replaced or repositioned.
From time to time all dust must be removed, as apart from having the pleasure of a clean piano on the inside, there is a real interest in not changing fine settings and preventing a moth infestation.
