Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What are the most established/respected rebuilders globally?

I am looking for suggestions here since I hope to buy a rebuilt piano abroad and move it to Asia.

Where are you located now?

Right now in Canada, but will soon move to East Asia. Rebuilt pianos are expensive in Asia, so I am hoping to buy one from a good rebuilder anywhere in the world and ship it to Asia.

If you will be somewhere that is considered tropical, you may want the piano rebuilt to be suited to that climate.

Are you aware of the rules regarding transporting pianos internationally with ivory keys? Many older pianos have them.

Air freight is expensive, and I can only imagine how complicated or delayed shipping things via container will be, for the foreseeable future. Unless you’re headed somewhere with no piano dealers, it sounds like a headache in the making with lots of opportunities for damage to occur…and responsibility passed around between the various entities that would have possession of your piano.

Do I understand from your post that you are willing and able to travel "anywhere in the world" to find the rebuilt piano before you arrange to have it shipped? How are you going to determine that the piano is one you are going to like if you don't try it out? That would suggest travels to multiple destinations.

Why must it be a rebuilt piano?

This plan doesn't sound like a good one, to me, unless you have lots of time and lots of money in the search even before you have the piano shipped. Finding a reliable shipper in the country where the rebuilt piano is finally found may not be the least of your worries!

Regards,

At riskof being shot down in flames I would mention that there are large numbers of rebuilds done in Poland. The prices represent a very good bang for your buck and I have heard that the work is done to a very high standard.

I wish I could get back to Eastern Asia.

I think there is a certain snobbery about this especially from rebuilders/tuner-techs in the UK. I have spoken to several dealers here in the past when I was looking for my grand and they usually say something along the lines of "casework great, replacing hammers/felts fine but regulation dodgy". The dealers/techs I have spoken to mention SAP most often. There's the hassle of having to shipping and added complication of trying the piano before you commit to the rebuild. Here's a gorgeous example though that caught my eye

https://saprenovation.com/our-work/for-sale/gaveau-sap-6338/

Sending a PM

Actually there *was* a certain snobbery regarding SAP renovation in Poland and other Polish rebuilders amongst the technicians and rebuilders in the UK, but that has changed in the past five years. It seems that the trade is now looking more seriously at Poland because the quality of the work is much higher than it has ever been.

The rebuilders I know about who are highly regarded:

SAP Renovation Poland, Piano Restorations Ltd UK, Cunningham Piano Philadelphia USA, PianoCraft Maryland USA, Piano Perfect LLC Columbus Georgia USA, Steinway and Sons London UK. I'd add Blüthner UK to the list but since they sold their restoration department it became Piano Restoration Ltd, although you can still request a factory restoration from Leipzig through their showroom for a very large fee.

I don't know the "was" is really true yet. I discussed this with a couple of dealers/rebuilders around the south west (oxford/herts) in the last 6 months (because I've been bitten by the piano bug and two grands are always better than one!) and whilst they were definitely receptive to sending the piano away to SAP, they pretty much said that they'd "had to redo the regulation" for pianos they had received back as it wasn't good enough/up to their standards. How much of that is true is hard to tell. However, given my experience and what I hear, I wouldn't be averse to sending a grand to SAP for rebuilding. I would simply reserve a portion of any budget for engaging a top concert technician to go over the regulation again. I know it sounds crazy but there's regulation and then there's regulation carried out by a concert tech.