🎹How to Buy a Used Piano - Tips, Questions to Ask, and What to Look For🎹

Key Bushings: 2:20
Key Leveling: 4:11
Hammer Wear: 5:17
The Strings: 7:10
Soundboard: 9:00
Play It: 12:26

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Welcome to another piano education video from Merriam Pianos. In this video we’re exploring the question how to buy a used piano and know what to look for, so you can avoid falling into the trap of over-paying or under-researching a used piano that you might be looking at. Thanks for checking out the channel, subscribe if you haven’t yet, and let’s all learn something new about buying a used piano with Stu Harrison. We hope you enjoy!

Most of the things to be wary of are easy to see, if you know what to look for.


Key bushings:

Key bushings are small felt or simulated felt parts which provide cushioning and spacing between various moving parts in a piano’s action. And a very common bushing to get worn out is the front rail or balance rail bushings on a piano, which causes the keys to feel particularly loose and less precise. An easy way to tell if a key is overly worn is this: can you lightly push a key to the left or right to the point that it touches the key next to it with no gap? If so, the key bushings are worn, and should be addressed if the piano is going to be used for ‘serious’ playing. It doesn’t mean that the instrument isn’t a good one, simply that it’s been under-maintained, or over-played, and that some attention should be given to this area based on your needs.


Worn hammers:

There are 88 hammers in most new pianos, and they all inevitably wear down as they impact the piano’s strings thousands and thousands of times. As the hammer becomes compacted and worn, you’ll see grooves starting to form on the hammer. SOME grooving is nothing to worry about, but if the hammer feels extremely hard (you can’t even push your fingernail into it even slightly) and the grooves are a millimeter or more deep, the hammers are either at the end of their life, or need to be shaved and needled (i.e. ‘voiced’). Again, not a deal-breaker, but a sign that the piano has been under-maintained over it’s time, and will likely be sounding far brighter and metallic than it would otherwise.


Key Leveling:

Another easy symptom to visually check out the overall keybed and see whether all of the white keys are relatively level with one another, and there aren’t severe differences in height and differences in width. Like the first point, this can be remedied, but serious key leveling is a sign that the piano may need a complete re-regulation and potentially in need of some replacement parts. This is a ‘yellow flag’ for sure.


Rusty or Corroded Strings:

Strings are made of steel and copper, and they do age, and really aren’t intended to last much longer than 50 years in the best case scenarios. Strings that are older than that often have trouble staying in tune, are more prone to breakage, and start to produce stray harmonics and unpleasant tones.

This is something that can visually be seen if you take the front of the piano off (upright), or the lid is lifted (grand). Dark or greenish bass strings, or pot-marked steel strings on the top is what this looks like. This is an expensive issue and will have a major effect on the piano’s overall musical performance.


Cracked Soundboard:

A cracked soundboard is a contentious problem that traditionally has meant that an instrument is basically ‘dead’ and should not be considered. The reality is more nuanced than that, but at the very least, a crack should trigger a full inspection by a piano technician. Cracks can be completely benign, and besides the aesthetic deficiencies, can be essentially ignored. On the other hand, a crack that is actively buzzing or crosses a rib, may be causing extremely serious issues that are incredibly expensive to fix.

A repaired soundboard is also something that can be perfectly fine, if the repair has been done well, so if you see discoloured lines on the soundboard, this could be repairs that you’re seeing.


Conclusions:

We hope these quick tips will help you in your search, and you can quickly figure out whether a used piano should be investigated further, or whether it can be passed over for something that might be a safer choice.

Thanks for watching!!


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