Refurbishing: Introduction

There are more parts in a piano than in your car.
Piano parts are made of wood, felt, leather, and water soluable glues. These parts expand and contract with changes in humidity and temperature, they get gummed up with particulate matter from the environment, and they get abraded by other interacting parts. Tuning pins lose tightness, hammers get deeply grooved and hardened, strings get corroded, copper windings loosen. The result after decades of wear is an instrument that cannot accept musically sensitive input, is never in tune, and sounds like a tin can.
That cheap or "free" piano you can get from your neighbor is going to have all of these problems. You don't want that.
What you want is an instrument that holds a tuning as well as a new piano. You want each key to travel smoothly and easily, and to feel identical to its neighbors. You want the piano to accept the full dynamic range of input, from whisper quiet pianissimo to crashing fortissimo. And of course, you want furniture value. A piano has a curious ability to draw the eye. It will be the centerpiece of whatever room it is in, so it had better look good.
At Chicago Used Pianos, we've taken care of all of this for you.
Navigate through this section to see a sampling of the major refurbishing steps that are undertaken on our pianos.
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