Why you should hire Rodgers' Piano

9091 Ox Bow Rd.
North East, Pa 16428
814-725-2665
JewelryCustomCrafted@hotmail.com

Why You Should Hire Rodgers' Piano Rebuilding

I've been rebuilding pianos full time for nearly twenty years. Before that I received a degree in piano and voice at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and also spent a number of years teaching piano privately. I have spent these years associating myself with every other source of piano education I could find. I have taken full advantage of Piano Technicians Guild seminars, conventions and literature. I have cultivated relationships with vastly experienced associates all over the world who have expertise in some or all areas of piano and player piano technology. I have taught other piano technicians in the arts of piano restoration. And I have a long list of satisfied customers. Couple all of this with the fact that good enough is never good enough with me. Only the best materials and the best quality craftsmanship is acceptable to me. I wouldn't want to buy anything else from another craftsman and I don't provide anything else to my customers.

Some of the services I offer include: Ruined Ivory restoration through chip repair, bleaching, re-gluing, resurfacing polishing and even replacement; Player piano rebuilding; Player piano conversions; Orchestrion rebuilding and new Orchestrion construction; Custom concert grand piano construction including pedal pianos which reach all the way down to pipe organ 64' CCCCC, Scale redesign; Action replacement and redesign; Restringing; Pin block replacement and redesign; Sound board and bridge replacement and redesign, including the installation of lower tension bridges which use attached agraffes to perfect string vibration - sound board vibration - and purity and balance of tone; Action regulation, including the replacement of key leads which create slowing inertia with rare earth magnet balancing systems and rare earth magnet friction reduction systems within the action body; Refinishing; Hardware polishing, replacement and replating; Voicing; mechanical tuning stabilization via a machine that plays all the notes hundreds of thousands of times until the strings have stretched a great deal and the action felts have compacted so that the tuning and regulation can be repeated for a much more stable result; and many more!

At one time, I offered every conceivable variation on piano restorations. However, I have come to understand more clearly in the last ten or fifteen years that the pianos being sent in for rebuilding no longer have viable reusable parts amongst those components which are considered to be perishable. These components include the action, pin block, finish, sound board and bridges. I will still take jobs which do not involve refinishing if you have your own refinisher you prefer to use or if you want to keep the old patina of the original finish. Other than that, I have found it consistently in the customer's best interests to have the job done thoroughly or not at all. A partial restoration will leave you with parts that cannot be relied upon so all the work could easily end up needing redone again far sooner than you had hoped should you try to just restore a small portion of the piano and leave the rest for some other time.

Reason number two is money!

The cost of living in the Erie, PA area is quite low. Also, I do all the work myself so I have no employees or workman's comp to pay. Therefore, I can rebuild your piano at a significantly lower cost than many other outfits. The cost of hiring a business in this area of the country can often save you so much money that the shipping costs to and from the workshop can pay for themselves and still leave you money in your pocket.

This business prides itself in making your needs number one. I never try to sell you work you don't need and I make it very clear to all customers what the value of their piano is and what restoration will do to that value. I have often told customers that their pianos were of no market value as they sat and would have very little value after restoration. Still these customers have usually chosen to have their pianos restored anyway because of the sentimental attachment they have for the piano. I listen carefully to what your musical goals are then I help you put together a plan for restoring your piano that makes sense for you. I work with you to figure out what YOU want for a musical and cosmetic result. Then, after that is established, I come up with truly unique and original plans for restoring your piano to give you the absolute best "bang for your buck!" The work I do far exceeds that which you will receive from just about any other rebuilder in the United States. In fact, I'm not entirely sure whether there is any rebuilder in this hemisphere that provides as many features and improvements during restoration as are available right here. Such work does lead to an average cost of thirty or forty thousand dollars per restoration but what you will receive in the end is going to be on a par with new pianos you could only acquire if you spent upwards of a quarter of a million dollars to buy.

Reason number three is education!

This site and my business is dedicated to educating you in pianos and piano restoration technology. It is my belief that an educated customer is a satisfied customer. And an educated customer knows when they have a good rebuilder on their hands and when they're getting quality work. In addition, when you communicate with me, I will spend further time in answering all your questions and informing you of work that you will receive that is extremely special and unique to this business but is sufficiently proprietary that I don't advertise it openly on the web site. But you will get that information when you choose to restore a piano here.

Reason number four is honesty!

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The standards of excellence here in my shop include a high standard of trustworthiness and honesty. Honesty always comes first over money and new business. For instance, if you're thinking of hiring another competent rebuilder and want my opinion on their qualifications; if deserved, I will be and have been in the past the first person to trumpet the wonderful quality of their work. I never try to sell work that isn't needed or try to get anyone to restore a piano that is unworthy of the expenditure. Your work will always be of the quality promised and all contracts made between us will be followed to the letter. In fact, my customers normally receive more work on their pianos than was paid for. Occasionally I find something wrong with a piano in the middle of a project that I feel will harm it's appearance or function. I will normally fix that thing without ever asking you for additional compensation unless there is something you choose to do to the piano after the initial agreement which will require significant additional hours of work or cost in parts. I never do any work to your piano without your approval. I always explain each aspect of the work to be done to your satisfaction before making any arrangements to proceed with the work.

Finally, there is the issue of time. For some years I have taken in jobs running me into backlogs upwards of three years or more. That stage of my business is winding up. I will no longer be taking more than one piano into the shop and one piano here waiting "in the wings" to be restored. Only these two customers will be under contract. All further inquiries for restoration will be placed on a waiting list, if so desired, and you will be contacted on a first come first served basis for a spot in the shop. This will cut down on the time that customers live under contract for their restorations. No money will be required from those wishing to place themselves on the waiting list.

It may seem strange to place yourself on a waiting list for piano restoration when so many rebuilders can take you right away and for half what I am asking. But keep in mind that the chances are almost 100% that such an offer will be for less than half the work and certainly less than half the quality of what you will receive here should you choose to wait it out. Right now is the perfect time to sign up since I am still filling out the last of my bulk orders from the heavy schedule I used to keep. You can get on the list now and beat the deluge that will be fighting for a spot once the last of these instruments are done.

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