John Tye	Piano Tuner
Casework

Casework means anything to do with the wooden frame of the piano. Old pianos were French polished, while most modern pianos are polyester-coated (which is a similar finish to your car). Both processes seal the grain, so wax polishing is inappropriate because there is nowhere for the wax to go except lie on the surface looking smudgy. Unfortunately many old pianos have a damaged finish which does expose the grain. Repair of this is possible, but usually involves stripping down, so the piano has to be taken away for a few weeks. I can do some finish repairs, but I do not have a workshop that will accommodate a whole piano, so I refer such work to a colleague. This work is not cheap. A polyester finish can also be repaired, but you will always be able to see the repair (but nobody else will). This is a fall that was so badly damaged that I needed to re-veneer it, followed by French polish.

Below I describe some other work that I have grouped under this heading. Castors Domestic castors are not really intended to be used, in fact many upright pianos now do not have castors. Domestic castors can be dangerous if the piano will be moved by someone on their own. So this school piano is having its castors replaced with school-quality castors. The rear castors screw into an outrigger so that they are always backwards of the centre of gravity.

Locks Pianos are like farm tractors, because they all use the same key for the fall lock and the lid lock. Strictly, there are three keys for uprights and a larger one for grands, but 99% of uprights use the same one. So I carry some with me and will sell you one. Replacing an upright lock involves some woodwork and aligning because although the keys are the same, the locks are not. Modern pianos do not have locks, the excuse being that they rattled (which they can). The absence of the lock enabled the lock rail to be prettily shaped, so that fitting a lock became a major excercise. I have shown you here what I had to do for a school, in the hope that you will have more sense than to ask me to do it.

	Prices re-veneering and French polishing a fall (takes at least a month) £370 fitting school-quality castors (without brakes) £180 replacing domestic castors £100 replacing an upright lock £60