Advice on a used Yamaha SU 118c

[baadshah]

Hi I live in India, where new pianos (electric and acoustic) are prohibitively expensive due to import duties, and decent second hand ones are few and far between, and may also be prohibitvely expensive.

So I've come across a used Yamaha SU 118 going for a very decent price here. FYI this is a japanese-made deluxe handcrafted U1 (its only 118 cm rather than 121 due to the absence of wheels but has the same dimensions otherwise). From the serial number, it was made in Japan in around 1994. So far so good...

I just made an ELEVEN hour round trip to try it out (like i said, such opportunities are rare here!) and my observations were: the sound was bright, powerful, lovely bass, as you would expect. The soundboard was uncracked, hammers looked new (most likely recently replaced), strings weren't rusty, felt wasnt moth-eaten, white coloured cabinet was unscratched.

But the touch of the keyboard was not so good:
 
1)]I found it difficult to play softly, particularly in the octaves either side of middle C (the most commonly used keys)

2) rapidly played repetitive notes on the same key didnt come out as clearly as I'd have liked,

3) I found the keys a lot lighter weighted than i have encountered on other U series pianos
 
4) the keys in the middle were slightly wobbly from side to side,

5) a few were sticking up marginally higher

6) the little used bottom B, C and D at the far left of the keyboard sometimes remained pressed down after being played

My question is, to what extent could these problems be solved by a good tuner? Are they due to a huge amount of use (maybe it was a grey market piano from a japanese school??) or does the piano just need setting up differently?

Were I living in Europe, I'd just buy a different piano, but the fact that they are so hard to come by here means I am seriously considering this one.

Please advise! Thanks a lot in advance

[quantum]

4) the keys in the middle were slightly wobbly from side to side,

Tells me this piano was played a lot!  Do they wiggle so much that they knock each other and make an audible sound?

[baadshah]

hi Quantum

no- they just wiggle slightly. not really too bad, but the ones in the middle have a bit more give than the lesser used high and low notes.

thanks

[indianajo]

The biggest tip off to high use is the felt of the hammers is noticably grooved in the middle octaves.  Sometimes they will be beat down half a centimeter.  Replacing felt hammers requires real skill to make them sound right.  With the cost of labor being what it is in India, you might be able to find someone to unstick the sticking keys without much difficulty. Sanding down bent sides, or replacing pivots (at the worst case) is a lot more mechanical than artistic.   Unless you can afford to control temperature and humidity in one room, don't buy a wooden piano at all- I understand about the monsoon and the dry season.  See the previous post by a guy in Africa.  No matter how long in the drying kiln wood has been, if the temperature and humidity go up and down all the time, it will warp, which causes sticking keys and hammers that miss the strings.   

[baadshah]

Thanks Indianajo. I wonder if you've touched on something. The hammers looked new, with no grooves (unless they'd been sanded) and the current owner said that the hammers had been replaced recently - I dont think he was lying.

I wonder if they were not put on as well as they could have been. Could this explain why the piano's action wasnt all it could have been? Or maybe they need some voicing done? I found it hard to get nuances out of the keyboard, in particular nice tone when playing gently, and difficult to even play softly. BUt the actual piano sound, when playing a loud chord, was good.

As for the humidity, thanks for the warning. Bombay has a lot of humidity during the monsoon, and I live 100m from the sea. I'll get a dehumidifier installed.

the problem with clavinova type pianos is that they are extremely expensive here, due to import duty, and only the expensive ones would be satisfactory piano alternatives. And these probably would only last for 8 or 9 years of heavy use anyway, so I think il risk  a second hand piano, even if it too declines in health after a few years...