New pins and board

[meggieuk2002]

Hi, my names Jo and I have really enjoyed reading the posts on this forum and was wondering if anyone could help me with my problem.

I have inherited a Schiedmayer upright piano from my grandmother, she taught piano and played professionally in her early life (I played on it as a child and fell in love with it), it is a beautiful piece of furniture.

It was played and tuned until about 18 months ago when gran got too ill, my ten year old daughter had been having keyboard lessons for a couple of months then decided she would love to play piano.

After 2 months piano lessons she is about to sit her grade two (grade one is too easy) she obviously gets her musical talent from gran, so we decided to get the piano tuned.

It is well over one hundred years old, but the tuning pins are not holding. The tuner thinks that it needs a new board and pins but he cannot repair it himself.

My question is how much it will cost and how reliable will it be in the future. I know it will probably cost more to repair than it is worth but it does hold very sentimental memories for me.

My daughter needs a piano but I do not have the room for two in the house.

Sorry for rambling but as I say I would be very sad to have to lose grans piano.

Any information or help would be gratefully received.

Thanks Jo

[PianoGuy]

It needs restringing with new pins and a new wrestplank rather than new board. As you say, not commercially worth doing, but Schiedmayers can be lovely old pianos, and sentimental value is hard to assess in money terms. I reckon you're looking at at least 3k for the repair if done correctly and sympathetically, and bear in mind that this does not address any problems associated with the action.

It's a deep repair, and you need to find a good workshop. I'm not familiar with your area, but Barry Caradine isn't too far away in Suffolk. His work in this field is excellent.