I did a major overhaul of the Pen High 7 foot grand recently. Those teenagers really put that instrument through a lot. I spend about a week repairing bent hinges, broken prop-sticks, sheared off screws, cracked benches… you name it.

This Pearl River grand has seen a lot of hours of playing in it’s short life. The hammers had been worn out to the point where the surface of the hammer that was hitting the string was very hard and flat. The result of this was a harsh, bright tone. There was a lot of body left on the hammer so I did some hammer carding (reshaping of the hammer felt) so that it had the nice round end that a new hammer would have. The change in the tonal quality was like night and day. The music teacher and students felt like it was a new instrument.

Before

After