You can get really good tips on maintaining and
caring for your piano on the Piano Page sponsored by the Piano Technicians Guild
at www.ptg.org
As a technician, I would leave the actual
servicing, regulating, voicing and tuning to professional RPT technicians.
A Disklavier is not a "do it yourself" maintenance instrument. I know it
has built-in software programs that will adjust your electronics to the physical
condiditon of the piano, but if you let the piano get too out of whack you can
put undo wear and tear on the parts.
There are some very simple things you can
do.
1) don't place the piano in direct sunlight or next
to a hot air heat register or radiator. It is all right for air
conditioning to blow across the piano, but not forced air heat. Sunlight
will bleach the finish. You can put UV covering on windows.
2) only use a damp soft cloth with a little water
to clean the keys or finish. Do NOT use furniture polish you find in
grocery or hadware stores!!! You can however, use that nice cleaner called
piano polish for the glossy cases that is available from the dealer or
technician. If your piano has a glossy finish, it is plastic, so use care
not to scratch it. Even if the case does get scratched, the scratches can
be removed by buffing.
3) Don't even think about ever lubricating any
parts of your piano!
4) try to maintain a even moisture content to the
air in the piano room.
5) get the piano tuned regularly. An astute
piano technician can also maintain the voicing and tighten things as noises
appear.
6) put a surge protector on the Disklavier and make
sure the outlet you are using is a properly wired grounded outlet. I can't
tell you how many service calls I have seen improper wiring! If possible,
just unplug the Disklavier when you are not using it.
7) don't put drinks on the piano, or eat cookies
with large sugar grains when playing. Keep flowers, plants and
candles OFF the piano. Keep those indoor trees away from the piano
too! Picture frames are notorius for rattles!
8) at the first sign of anything that looks like
black rice on or near the piano, set mouse traps.
9) the fallboard (nameboard with Yamaha) across the
keys is easily removable. Just pull it off to remove pencils and other
foreign objects that fall into the piano action. Things that are allowed
to remain on top of the keys behind the fallboard can work their way into the
piano action and cause keys to stick and other parts to break.
You can always pose specific questions to this
list. There are always piano technicians lurking!
Carol Beigel, RPT
Show quoted textHide quoted text
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 2:13
PM
Subject: [disklavier] Re: Is there an
owner's manual for the acoustic piano itself on the
Since the Yamaha "How to Care" manual tells you
nothing at all about the piano mechanism, you might be interested in Arthur
Reblitz's book "Piano Servicing Tuning and Rebuilding". Yamaha pianos
are technically the same as any other piano (except they use more metal and
plastic these days), so this book applies to virtually any piano, and it
covers uprights and grands. It is available from Amazon.
John Farmer
UK
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