Piano technicians sometimes have trouble replacing broken strings, especially on spinets and middle sections of all verticals. Knowing how to do it and having the correct tools are all you need. Here are the tools you need: a string cutting tool (a small pair of vise grips works), a tuning pin, a tuning hammer, a T hammer or crank, a small pair of vise grips, duck bill pliers, a string gauge, screw drivers, a hammer, and needle nose pliers or a tool that I thought up: it's a thin screw driver with a hole drilled half way through it. You can use it for grabbing the string when pushing it through under the capo or pressure bar. Take your tuning hammer and turn the two tuning pins out at least 1 1/2 turns. Take off both beckets. Measure the gauge of the broken string. Take the correct size string and push it up through the capo or pressure bar using that screwdriver with the hole in it or a needle nose pliers. Next, using your own tuning pin, put the string in and make your coil. Make sure that you put the same amount of loops as the rest of the piano and that the string doesn't stick through past the other side of the tuning pin unless the rest of the strings are like that. Take the becket off the tuning pin and put it on the piano's tuning pin. Squeeze it with your duck bills. String it down through the bridge pin, bend it around the hitch pin, up again through the other bridge pins, then toward the tuning pins. You can clamp the vise grip on the hitch pin if the string keeps falling off. On the uncut side of the string, measure about four fingers past the tuning pin that it is going into and cut the string. Take your needle nose pliers or screw driver with the hole in it and push the string through the pressure bar. Put a coil on your tuning pin, take the beckett off and put it on the appropriate pin,squeeze it like the other one. Use a bigger screw driver to hold the coils up while your tightening up each string. Tap down the coils with a screwdriver and a hammer so they are straight. Also, tap the string by the bridge pins and hitch pins. Space your strings above and below the pressure bar.

Occasionally we encounter on a grand keyboard a key which presents unusual playing resistance, a feeling like the action is "locked up." This can occur if the backcheck is too far forward and engages the hammer tail on the upstroke, before it can clear the backcheck and rise upward to the string. However, it is not always necessary to remove the action from the piano in order to regulate the backcheck and achieve playability. To quickly make this adjustment in the piano, insert a long screwdriver through the string interspace, and by applying a very gentle lateral pressure to push the hammer slightly aside you will be able to reach the backcheck with the blade. (Be careful not to push too hard and damage the hammer center). Push in on the screwdriver lightly and you can move the backcheck outward and achieve the necessary clearance for the hammer tail. The checking height might not precisely match the adjacent hammers, but given time constraints this is a fast, effective repair.