Category Archives: transport

The Leeds Piano Tuner Resettles

The Leeds piano tuner would like to explain his absence. Over the Christmas break he has relocated to his home to town Sheffield to be nearer relatives – THIS WILL NOT affect his working hours or the possible range of his clientele. He will still be piano tuning in Leeds and Bradford at least four days a week. Traveling long distances is part of his job! In this day and age, a piano tuner seeking to earn a living has to be prepared to travel.

He is currently without internet access except for some monthly data on his iPhone, which allows him to respond to queries. For that reason, this blog will be updated sporadically for the foreseeable future. He has received some emails from other piano tuners who have found some of the posts on this blog informative, which has encouraged him to continue in some form, but until he has a modem and an internet connection, there won’t be as many posts.

 

Are there any jobs the Leeds piano tuner won’t undertake?

For the last five years I have dealt primarily with piano tuning, repairs and regulation – these are the areas I feel most comfortable with and are the jobs I carry out on a day to day basis. While training at Lincoln College in the early part of this decade, I also studied piano restoration extensively – these lessons took up a third of my study time, and while piano restoration requires a full workshop, I have these skills ingrained in my memory. During my career as a Leeds piano tuner, there have been one or two jobs in area of restoration that I have declined to carry out, chiefly because I lacked the tools and/or work space to carry out the jobs to a sufficiently high standard. However, once I have access to my new workshop (late July 2019), I can start to rejig my memory on how to perform several frequently requested restoration services (mainly linked to aesthetics). Two of the most popular that spring to mind are:

  1. Re-finishing are re-polishing. I can do this once I have access to a workshop with an array of high gloss, french and spray polishes. If your piano’s case is scratched or damaged I can bring it back to life.
  2. Fitting piano castors – a frequent request I have to turn down until I’m in possession of piano lifting equipment (all of which are extremely expensive to buy). One of the first things I will buy for my workshop will be a portable bench truck – this will allow me to tilt a piano on its back in order to change the castors. I can then offer this service to my Leeds and Bradford clients – many older overdamped pianos are often in need of new castors. I can re-fit them at the end of the piano tuning once we’ve discussed the extra cost.

Keep reading my Leeds piano tuning blog for more information.

– Richard.

Piano tuner out of service – for now

Due to unforseen circumstances, my working hours next week will be limited. The best way to find out if I could tune your piano is to email me at richard@pianotunersheffield.co.uk or phone my mobile 07542667040. I won’t be listing my availability on this Piano Tuner Leeds website this week as it will be sporadic and dependent upon your location. This is because on the drive from Sheffield to Leeds today, I happily crashed my car like an idiot causing me to be without a vehicle for the forseeable future. I will be relying on friends and relatives for transport until I’m able to hire a car. Thankfully no one was hurt, but it’s very annoying – I’d previously kept it in excellent condition and had a lot of fond memories attached to it.

Hard times….