Services
Piano Repair
Chicago Piano Service is often asked to repair:
- Broken piano legs
- Broken or torn pedal lyre or pedals
- Missing pedal rods or pedal lyre braces
- Water marks from vases, cups, mugs
- Dog chewed or gnawed piano legs, pedal lyre or piano cabinet (often corners)
- Cabinet dents, dings or chips
- Chips to ivory or plastic keytops and missing natural or sharp keytops
- Piano bench repair for loose or wobbly legs, bench inside bottom repair or top finish repair
- Broken piano keys: often dislodged during moves due to a mis-adjusted or absent key up-stop rail
- Damaged or missing cabinet top and other hinges
- Missing case or cabinet buttons
- Other pet damages or spills to soundboard or cabinet including urine or spilled beverages
Chicago piano service offers keytop re-covering and ivory repair, key bushing replacement and more. Many of these services are available as regulation or rebuilding options as well.
Keyboard and Action Repair & Replacement:
We offer key recovering, ivory repair, keyframe felting and custom replacement of action parts including: wippens (repetitions), hammers, hammer shanks and flanges and other components. Our parts come from renowned manufacturers such as Steinway & Sons, Renner, Abel, Mapes Piano String Co., Tokiwa and others.
Post-Repair Regulation and Voicing:
Following installation of new piano action components, each piano goes through the process of preliminary, intermediate and final regulation and voicing. Painstaking adjustments are made to each action part and hammer, in order to realize the full potential of the piano as a musical instrument. Complete action regulation is a process that involves cleaning and bedding the keyframe, minimizing friction, establishing a best key height and key travel (dip), key squaring and spacing, hammer blow distance, alignment and vertical travel of all components of the wippen and hammer assemblies, hammer shape and shaping, adjustments of the repetition lever, jack, repetition spring, back check, let off, drop and after-touch assessment. Damper regulation and timing is also a critical component of this cyclical process.
“Jeff not only maintained my prized piano for decades, he salvaged it from severe damage caused in a botched move.”
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: I have sticking keys. What is the problem:
A: Many conditions can cause piano keys to stick. Among those are tight key bushings, warped key slip, debris between keys, in action or under keys at backrail cloth. Other conditions might also include warped key ends, splayed damper lift cloth, jammed or damaged front rail key cloth or verdigris.
Q: My piano buzzes. Is there something on the soundboard:?
A: Buzzes can be from lots of different conditions. Included are soundboard cracks, debris on the soundboard, loose screws in many different places such as the main top hinge, loose hinge pins, loose caster stems or even from somewhere else in the room! We have worked with many elusive buzzes at pianos over the years. One of the more interesting ones found was a penny lodged in the bass bridge apron tunnel at the soundboard…. completely out of sight.
Q: Should I take the free piano I see on Craig’s List:?
A: Beware of free pianos. There is usually a reason for someone wanting to get rid of a piano. Be sure to take a qualified technician with you to see the freebie you want to take. Check for mold, rodent debris, tuning ability and overall condition before you put someone else’s problem in your home.
For The Finest In Piano Servicing
Contact Chicago Piano Service, Inc.
Address
1038 Jackson Ave
River Forest, IL 60305
Hours
By Appointment Only