Piano frustration, mechanics please enter

[ranniks]

- Paid money to get acoustic up the stairs, difficult pair of stairs
- It's in my room
- Will save for a better piano yamaha/etc
- Maybe in the next 2-3 years I will have it
- Don't want anyone to get hurt getting this thing downstairs again

Question: Can I with the help of a technician dismember the piano and part by part down the stairs?

What about the metal in the piano? Isn't that at least 70% of the weight of the whole piano? What about the strings? Isn't it dangerous moving those?

I am talking about an upright.

[ranniks]

Next piano will be an acoustic as well, dw all!

[outin]

Why worry about getting the piano down, if you will only get a new one in a few years?

It seemed like an impossbile task to get it up there, remember, and everything worked fine...you'll manage when the time comes. If you buy a new piano next time, just make a deal that the dealer takes the old one so then it's not your problem anymore

[hardy_practice]

I worked at a pretty tough school 20 years ago.  One lunch time a group of boys ripped apart a good quality piano and fed it though the first story window bit by bit.  All that was left in the room was the harp with strings attached as it wouldn't fit through.  They may also have left the inside label that said the piano was guarenteed to withstand all extremes of climate (there's some irony there). Ahh, halcyon days!  So yes, it can be done.

[hfmadopter]

Last I knew you loved your piano, now you want to dismember the thing.

[ranniks]

Why worry about getting the piano down, if you will only get a new one in a few years?

It seemed like an impossbile task to get it up there, remember, and everything worked fine...you'll manage when the time comes. If you buy a new piano next time, just make a deal that the dealer takes the old one so then it's not your problem anymore

Now that's an excellent idea!

I worked at a pretty tough school 20 years ago.  One lunch time a group of boys ripped apart a good quality piano and fed it though the first story window bit by bit.  All that was left in the room was the harp with strings attached as it wouldn't fit through.  They may also have left the inside label that said the piano was guarenteed to withstand all extremes of climate (there's some irony there). Ahh, halcyon days!  So yes, it can be done.

That's a very good story to hear!

Last I knew you loved your piano, now you want to dismember the thing.

Yes. Though this piano is dearly played, a better piano would suit my needs better in the next couple of years.

It is a daunting task to move this thing without people getting hurt.

Or maybe it's the tuning. Needs to be tuned.

[indianajo]

I helped cut up a Winter piano and fit it in the trash can when the garbage men let it sit on the curb in front of a friends house a few weeks. Makes a mess, all the sparks from cutting the metal plate with the body grinder.  Wear safety glasses, and don't let a breaking string cut your jugular artery.
I wouldn't play a Yamaha piano if somebody paid me.  Once pianos were made by my neighbors, now everybody here is a lawyer or government employee or shop clerk or welfare recipient and everything is imported from the experts in another country who find paying employee benefits totally unnecessary. Those products are not necessary for me.  
I lost a lot of strength and accuracy last summer when I spent five months away from my Sohmer at my country property cutting trees and grass .  I've spotted my next piano to go in the trailer, a "Schroeber" made in Chicago pre-WWII.  6' high, 400 lb, decent tone and very fast. $80 at Salvation Army.   Will be perfect for Scott Joplin and JoAnne Castle imitations.  Now if I can just find a ramp to get it in the back of the pickup- renting a truck with ramp would be more than the price of the piano.  

[hardy_practice]

I wouldn't play a Yamaha piano if somebody paid me.

Me neither.

[hfmadopter]

I've spotted my next piano to go in the trailer, a "Schroeber" made in Chicago pre-WWII.  6' high, 400 lb, decent tone and very fast. $80 at Salvation Army.   Will be perfect for Scott Joplin and JoAnne Castle imitations.  Now if I can just find a ramp to get it in the back of the pickup- renting a truck with ramp would be more than the price of the piano.  

A couple 2x10s, bolt an edge to one end of each. Unlatch the cables to the tailgate,  put the tailgate down so it's 180 deg from where it was when closed and slip that edge in the slot between the body and the gate so the planks won't kick out on you. You have two ramps. You might want to build up a block brace half way up the length of the ramps. That's how we got my grand into the house as well.

Just about everything today is made over seas, even from long standing native companies. I bought three bicycles in the last few years. Specialized touts their bikes as American made. Guess what, sticker on two of them say China and I don't think they mean China Maine. These are not low end bikes.  Bought a Raleigh before those two, it was made in China as well. All good components etc, just made over there. TRW auto parts are made over seas, they sent their engineers over there to make the parts as they were made here. Just about you name it and it's probably not made in our home land anymore.

St. Crioux Flyrods are made here in the US FWIW but I hear even they are coming out with a competivelty priced series made off shore.. Sage, same thing ( I love my Sage flyrods incidentally)..

[ranniks]

I wouldn't play a Yamaha piano if somebody paid me.

Actually a Kawai would be my pick. There is this odd branded grand at this old people's center, that just plays very well as well. Light but with weight behind it, unlike some/most yamaha's. The only Kawai branded piano I've played did the same as I recall.

I remember playing this Yamaha upright once, boy, it had no weight behind it at all. I could have hurt my fingers just from playing Fur Elise on that thing. My fingers by now enable me to play most, if not all keyboard instruments. Another favor to my oldy at home :3.

[indianajo]

When I went on night shift in 2000 and started sleeping on Sunday mornings, our church had a Kawai console piano in the sanctuary, probably made in Carolina to read the internet lore.  Had a decent sound, was fast enough. I played a few solos on it, not to anybody's satisfaction apparently, I was never asked to try again.   They also had a Hammond organ (C2) with a Leslie speaker and a Stromberg Carlson sound system with Telefunken radio microphones.  
when I quit working in 2008 and started attending church again, the new sanctuary had a Yamaha studio piano, donated by prominent members of the congregation.  The new piano bass has no overtones IMHO and the level is inadequate for a 600 seat room, so they put a cheap microphone in it (they break a lot, that how I know they are not PA grade microphones) , and relayed the piano through the Yamaha PA speakers at the peak of the conical room.  Those speakers had no bass, either, neither on piano or voice.  They further addressed the volume problem by buying a Korg electric keyboard, ran it through some off brand mixer, and last year bought some more Yamaha PA speaker with 8" woofers for the front of the stage.  Reproducing bass tones must not be a priority to the music committee.  All the microphones fail occasionally and have to be replaced mid-service.  I've told the music committee what I think of their purchase practices, and will not sing with the music unless they silence all the instruments, or play only the new Rogers organ. 1/3 third our congregation works retail or supports their underemployed adult children, but the leadership is all government employees, mostly school teachers.  The employment problem is not anything we can do anything about , I believe they think.  
When I want to buy something, I buy used if I can find anything.  I drive my car full of tools to and from the country place once a year, and ride a 197? US made 5 speed bicycle up and back once a week. The exercise last year improved my weight, diabetes, and didn't cause any motor fuel to be imported either. Unfortunately, bicycles tires and organ repair capacitors have to be imported from the far East, the rubber has to be new on those. I can get transistors and resistors from Mexico, that buys our farm products. But pianos, there are plenty of superior used choices.  Somebody has donated a fifties Baldwin console piano to one of the Sunday School rooms of the church that sounds better to me than the studio Yamaha in the sanctuary, but the music committee said they  certainly wouldn't offend anybody by swapping them out.  The Yamaha piano is new.

[hfmadopter]

 
When I want to buy something, I buy used if I can find anything.  I drive my car full of tools to and from the country place once a year, and ride a 197?

Exercise, in my case bike riding has cut my 3 different blood pressure meds in half. I was hoping to take one away but the cardiologist doesn't agree.

Old Baldwins are nice pianos if they are in good shape..