Reddit mentions of Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding: For the Professional, the Student, and the Hobbyist

Best place to start is to find your local chapter of the Piano Technician's Guild and start attending meetings. As a whole, piano technicians are a pretty awesome bunch who are always willing to share their knowledge.

A good book to get you started is Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Rebuilding. Most public/university libraries will have a copy of this. This book isn't necessarily up to date with modern practices, but it'll give you some idea of overall concepts and techniques.

I would also find a copy of The Piano Book which will give you a nice overview of the piano and the piano market. This one is often in libraries as well.

I would strongly suggest Piano Parts and Their Functions which is full of diagrams that will get you speaking in the same language as other piano technicians.

The Wonders of the Piano: The Anatomy of the Instrument is a great overview of the whole piano design and construction process but it may be tricky to find.

For education beyond the PTG, you have a couple of options. Many technicians learn via home correspondence courses. The most popular course is Randy Potter's Course. It takes a certain kind of individual to really learn from these kind of courses. Many pair a course like this with an apprenticeship which helps to fill in gaps in education. Your other option is to attend a trade school. There are a number of piano technology schools in the US which are a great way to jump-start your career.

With regards to tools, there are a few things you have to have and then many more that you start to collect over time. To solve about 95% of problems, you need about $1500-$2000 in tools. Just to get started, expect $200 - $500. Your most important tool is your tuning lever. Avoid apprentice tuning levers. They are cheap but they will slow down your learning significantly.

Feel free to ask more questions. There are a handful of techs lurking in /r/piano :).

> What would be required of me to learn to tune pianos?

You need average hearing (wouldn't hurt to be above average), average mobility and average strength, LOTS of willpower, patience and LOTS of time (seriously, it's just as demanding as learning to play the piano). You will also need some money for tools and materials.

The previous musical experience is nice but not at all required. It will not be of much use (trust me, 10 years at a conservatory + 4 years of private lessons were completely useless on my first experiments; the engineering background was far more useful).

> Where to begin?

1. sign up for a piano technology programme at an established school. Check this list
   
   
2. Find yourself the nearest PTG chapter. Ask these guys if unsure Attend to their meetings, there are a lot of nice guys in that group. They will help you making a plan. The PTG invests a lot of time and effort teaching people. They make materials for beginners, they organize seminars and conferences...
   
   
3. Find yourself a piano technician willing to work with you. Lessons, apprenticeship... I don't know.
   
   
4. Mail/Internet course. This is the most popular one but there are others. You can find copies of the Potter course on ebay. It's a MASSIVE amount of information.
   
   
5. The DIY school. That is, on your own making one mistake after another for a long time until you notice you are starting to be less dangerous.
   
   I had to take option #5 because of geographical, financial, and other limitations. It's hard. I'd suggest to explore the other alternatives before trying that one.
   
   Whatever route you take, lots of techs have taken it before. There are A HELL OF A LOT of techs who took option 5.
   
   You can combine several of those options...
   
   Whatever route you take, it wouldn't hurt if you start doing some reading.
   
   Start by reading this and this.
   
   Those will get you an idea of what to expect.
   
   It's not just about tuning. Do yourself a favour and don't think about "just getting into tuning." Strings break, keys feel funny, pedals don't work... You frequently need many skills before even putting the tuning hammer on a pin.
   
   You should at least lurk here and here.
   
   Techs usually don't like people who take the DIY until they prove they can do stuff. See, piano techs are tired of people telling them what they do is super easy. They are tired of people using pliers to mutilate pianos...
   
   Piano techs use weird tools. You don't need all of them at first, but it wouldn't hurt to start a tool fund. Do not even look at cheap tools. Things are already complicated, getting shitty tools will only cause you to suffer and curse. You will also, eventually, need some supplies.
   
   I am NOT a piano technician, but I spent some time learning about this stuff and know how it is to start from nothing. OnaZ is a practicing piano technician (I think there are some others around here).

I do see free pianos periodically on Craigslist and in the other “PennySaver” classifieds. I’m in New England, and that helps, since a lot of older U.S. pianos were made in New York, Boston, and vicinity. In particular, I see large upright pianos from roughly 1870-1930 which was a tremendous production era for American pianos. These pianos are heavy and often neglected, and they are free because the cost of having them professionally moved can be prohibitive. So yes, strong people with dollies, ramps, and a UHaul can indeed score themselves free pianos.

My preference would be for people to restore these instruments, but I suppose that repurposing the wood is better than seeing these in a landfill. My piano is well over 100 years old, and my son and I learned to repair it ourselves. The mechanisms are fascinating yet fairly simple once you understand them. Usually the free ones have some non-working keys, missing ivory, and some damaged wood, all repairable. A cracked cast iron frame or pin block is usually not worth the effort.

On the harvesting, one of the more valuable parts are the real ivory keys.

P.S. Good book if anyone wants to learn about piano repair.

If you're looking for quality tools that a technician could use for decades, you'll want to spend the most on a tuning hammer with replaceable tips. The quality and price can vary from there, but that's a good basic guideline.

Here is one of your best bets for finding quality equipment available to the public. Generally, everything on that page above the nylon tuning hammer (S-4) is considered apprentice-level, because having a longer exposed steel rod allows a slight amount of flex at the shaft, and a longer handle prevents that. The extension lever is the lever many if not most technicians swear by, but is more expensive.

A different option is scour eBay for vintage Schaff or Hale tuning hammers, where you can find very high quality tools for a lot cheaper than retail. I got a steal on a Hale extension lever for under $30 that way.

Besides the tuning hammer itself, you will only need a small assortment of rubber mutes, a wool temperament strip or two, and possibly a good A fork.

As far as learning, there are few online resources that really go into detail on the process of learning aural tuning. The well-known Reblitz book does have a good section on tuning, but even this should only be a supplement to a wealth of information needed to truly understand the process.

Another good tool to use is the computer program Tunelab, for which there is a fully functional free trial that can be used indefinitely with only small intermittent pauses. It's good for beginning to learn to manipulate the tuning hammer without going wildly off base, and it's another useful tool to supplement an understanding of tuning theory.

This is a big investment, but if she is serious about learning the trade, the tools are well worth their price in utility, and once she trains to a competent level, they will quickly pay for themselves.