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by Michael Slavin, RPT We often encounter squeaks in the damper levers of vertical pianos when we depress the sustain pedal. A usual source of this noise is the "auxiliary" damper lever which is mounted near the bass break on many actions (although sometimes it appears at either end of the damper lever set); this lever has no damper wire or head/felt but contributes additional pressure along the damper rod where there is none due to a gap in the spacing of the levers. Just by lifting the spring out of its slot and snapping it back will often eliminate the squeak. Occasionally a bit of burnishing in the spring slot or a small application of Protek MPL (solid) may also be required. This procedure works as well on any other individual damper levers which may be squeaking. I have also had success by simply pulling the auxiliary lever forward as far as it will go (by inserting the spring tool at the back of the lever) and letting go abruptly, returning the lever to rest. This motion is apparently just enough to clear the spring slot of any extraneous material.
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by Paul Eccardt, Chapter President Having control of your business will give you less stress, and you'll make more money. Some customers try to tell us when we should come and tune their pianos, how much we should charge them, and how they are going to pay us, etc. Some of us have trouble saying "no". Here are some ways to take charge of your business. List your customers in your computer by zip code; when you get a call for a tuning, go through the list with that same zip code, or one nearby, and call them to schedule a tuning for the same day. If you can't schedule them, make them wait until you're in that same area. If they live too far away, sometimes it's not worth doing. When customers tell us that their last tuner charged them half of what we are charging, most of the time they forget to tell us that they didn't have their piano tuned in five years or more. It can intimidate some of us to tell customers that they need a double tuning and that it is going to cost even more money. It is important to stand our ground. It is also important to tell customers how you want to get paid; some tuners won't
accept billing, others accept only cash. Whatever your policy is, stick with it. If you give in
to everything, you will give the impression that you are starved for work.
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