Regulation
The average piano has anywhere from 4,000 to 13,000 parts. Most of these parts are made from natural resources, namely, wood and felt (wool). These materials are very sensitive to their environment. Temperature and humidity can play a large role in whether or not these parts work together correctly or not. There are a few areas of regulation that need to be dealt with.
ADJUSTMENTS
There are about 20 adjustments per key that must be checked and adjusted in your piano's action. That is over 1750 adjustments in one piano! As you can imagine that if these parts are neglected long enough then regulation can be quite time consuming. These adjustments can become necessary for a variety of reasons: normal wear and tear, severe humidity changes, age, etc.
Let's compare your piano to a car. If you want your car to last you need to have maintenance performed on a regular basis. Think of your regular bi-annual tuning as getting your oil changed. Think of regulation as some of the other service that you have done on your car such as brakes, belts, wiper blades, etc. These are things that you don't have done quite as often but they are still quite necessary. Also relating to cars we can use this example: It would be awful scary to drive your car without having your brakes fixed and by doing that you could also cause other significant damage to your car by driving without them being done like, oh, I don't know, say running into a guard rail. The same is true with a piano. If regulation isn't performed fairly regularly, you could be doing damage to other parts. For example, if you have one of those keys that likes to play two or three times when you strike the key once, there are a few adjustments that should be made and if not corrected could cause serious damage to the hammer of that particular note. With our ASC (Annual Service Contract) These adjustments are performed annually.
CLEANING
You would be amazed at the things that can be found inside pianos. I have found everything from an Indian head nickel to hairpins to playing cards and more. All of things can cause your piano to malfunction. But, surprisingly, these are not the things that cause the most damage. Rodents and dust/dirt are the culprit for many action problems. Rodents are pretty self-explanatory. They eat felts, chew on wood, make nests out of everything, and other things that we don't care to mention. Whatever needs to be done, get them out. If you are storing your piano in a shed or garage, set a trap regularly or you will find yourself with costly repairs down the road. Dirt, when magnified often looks like little razorblades clumped together. Dust and dirt- especially sand, is hard on your piano if left to collect over the years. These small particles work just like sandpaper on the felt punchings that are underneath your keys. They wear them down and, eventually, out. Their life can be greatly prolonged by a regular cleaning. With our ASC (Annual Service Contract) this is performed once a year
INSPECTION
By doing proper regulation it allows us as technicians to get into the piano and see if there are potential problems. Many of which are much less expensive to fix than after they are actually broken. For example: by having regular regulation performed our technicians may find that you have a glue joint that has worked loose on one of your hammers. If fixed now it would probably cost a couple of dollars to have done but if continues to work itself loose, eventually it could break the hammer shank and/or the hammer. This would be much more expensive to fix than if the problem were caught early.
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Below are some models of what a cut-away view of a piano's action looks like. It also shows many of the various parts. The grand action model can be found in all grand pianos with little variation. The upright action model can be found in uprights, studios, and consoles. The drop action can be found in spinets. For more information on piano types click here.
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