Ive been offered a free upright piano

cloptrop

Ive been offered a free upright piano,its very old and needs tuning.
Will it be worth the struggle to transport it or will i find its untuneable and be left with a large unplayable piano in the sitting room?
Has anyone any advice on what to look out for before i take it , how much the tuning will cost , what are the odds on it being untuneable.

Miguel_Sanchez

First thing would be to get someone to look at it before you accept it. That way you can make sure they're not just using you as a dump.

cloptrop

but then id have to pay someone to come out and look ,
im on a shoestring here
are they even worth anything , would i be better off getting a keyboard

cloptrop

i think it may be better to just gety a keyboard now that ive seen the prices they are going for

Malice

Do what Jeff_Lebowski wrote. If you're on a shoe-string budget then you might be as well off passing on it regardless. It could be a fabulous piano in need of repair which would cost so until those repairs are complete it's just going to be taking up room in your house.

Ravelleman

My family has three uprights floating about. They take up a lot of space.

Miklos

If you're on a shoestring you can't afford it as it will definitely need to be looked at buy somebody. You can't tune a piano yourself really. Our piano at home gets tuned every couple of months..

If someone is willing to flat out give a piano away it's probably not worth having.

Squidgy Black

For the price it'd cost you to get the piano properly tuned you're better off buying a keyboard. I think it's something like 150-250 quid to do it. It's not something you can do yourself either.

kevin65

We have an old upright piano here that came from the in-laws. My better half thought it was a decent piano until the piano tuner that she paid to tune it up said it was untunable and would probably have to be restrung to be able to sort it properly. So I'd be happy for someone to take it for free off my hands.

You could ed up getting a piano like I have, so you should be wary and get it checked by someone before taking it if you are serious about it.

cloptrop

kevin65 wrote: »

We have an old upright piano here that came from the in-laws. My better half thought it was a decent piano until the piano tuner that she paid to tune it up said it was untunable and would probably have to be restrung to be able to sort it properly. So I'd be happy for someone to take it for free off my hands.

You could ed up getting a piano like I have, so you should be wary and get it checked by someone before taking it if you are serious about it.

Do pianos burn?
I have a fire and firewood comes in handy from tiume to time, how much wood is involved in them , are they half wood half metal?
i wonder if i burned half and scrapped the other half would i be onto a winner

Malice

cloptrop wrote: »

i wonder if i burned half and scrapped the other half would i be onto a winner

I strongly doubt it but it might be therapeutic to smash up a piano .

kevin65

Malice wrote: »

cloptrop wrote: »

i wonder if i burned half and scrapped the other half would i be onto a winner

I strongly doubt it but it might be therapeutic to smash up a piano .

Yes, it would be a good way to take work out your muscles. A big iron frame inside all the timber!

cloptrop

kevin65 wrote: »

Yes, it would be a good way to take work out your muscles. A big iron frame inside all the timber!

i dont think iron is worth much scrapped , and the wood doesnt look like itd burn too good

Faing

Old uprights make a nice piece of furniture in the right surroundings whether they play well or not. In the wrong room they are an eyesore...... My brother has an old piano that was buggered and not worth tuning so he removed the keyboard , iron plate, strings hammers etc and fitted a Yamaha keyboard in the carcase. Kids love it, its a cool use of a scrap piano.

cloptrop

tHATS a great idea dude,
Would really look great, i am not going to go through the trouble of tansporting it to my house for this purpose though .

argosy2006

Could use it to drop on Andy Carroll,