The Shadetree Masochist: There's No Such Thing as a Free Piano!

About two years ago, my brother offered to let me have my grandmother's piano. His daughter was now in college, so it was sitting collecting dust. He wasn't actually "giving" it to me, but I could take possession of it, if I could figure out a way to get it home. It was in my hometown which is about a 6.5 hour drive from where I live. The price of gas finally came down to a reasonable price and Enterprise had a special weekend rate with unlimited mileage on a big pickup. We planned a trip for the Friday of Spring Break.

The trip up was uneventful. We stopped at my Step-mother's house, which is where we were going to stay for the night, and visited for a bit. I got in touch with my brother and we planned to meet to load up the piano, which was about 40 minutes away. He was on his way to pick up his 2 "helpers".

We arrived at the building where the piano was being stored and my brother and his helpers were already there examining the piano. Apparently, my brother's "helpers" were quite drunk and had already managed to tip the piano over on it's back! Several keys on either end of the keyboard were either stuck down, or unable to be played. The panel above the keyboard was off to the side and could not be mounted because the rod on one side had broken off. The keys in the middle of the keyboard still played and it didn't sound all that bad all things considered. For a moment, I considered just forgetting the whole thing, but I realized that it would cost the same amount to get home with or without the piano (well, ok, it would cost a little more WITH the piano due to the weight), so we decided to load it up and see if it could be fixed when we got it home.

We get the piano loaded into the truck without TOO much incident. Kinda scratched the bed and tailgate a bit, but no additional damage to the piano. Here's where it gets good. I had brought a ratcheting tie-down strap. I wasn't sure how it worked, so while I was reading the directions, one of the "helpers" immediatedly grabbed it out if my hands and started to put it together. He got the strap wrapped up inside the ratchet to the point that it couldn't be released, rendering it useless. Every time I tried to get it apart, he would get right up in my face and try to "help" me, and kept yelling that there was something not right with the tie-down. I wanted to scream, "Yeah, because you broke it you drunken idiot!!" I wasn't sure if these guys were good friends of my brother's or what, so I just bit my tongue and walked away. My brother told me later that he was not quite right in the head even when he was sober. Great!

In the meantime, my brother had some rope. The other "helper" used the rope to strap down the piano, and when he was done, he proclaimed, "That won't tip over, I'll stake my life on it!" I could shake the piano easily, so I guess his life wasn't worth much! We headed back to my step-mother's house and crossed our fingers. My wife was stressing, because every bump we hit made the piano rock precariously. On the way, my brother called my cell and apologized profusely. He had no idea his helpers were going to be in that condition. If he had known, he would have picked other people to help. Luckily, we made it to my step-mother's house without incident and put the truck and piano in her garage and went to bed.

We realized there was no way we could get the piano back home in one piece in it's current state, so the next morning, I went to the hardware store and bought 4 tie-down straps. Before I started re-securing the piano, I took a few pictures to document the "I'll stake my life on it" packing job.

Original Packing

Original Packing

Notice the tightness of the ropes (or lack thereof)! After looking at it, I was amazed that we made it that far without the piano tipping over! I removed the rope and started to secure it the right way. I wrapped the piano in furniture blankets and covered it with a tarp. Then we wrapped it in several layers of stetch tape to keep the tarp from blowing away. When all was said and done, I strapped 2 long tie-downs around the back to keep it secured against the front of the bed. Then I strapped 2 tie-downs over the top to keep it from tipping. When we were done, it was very secure. When we tried to shake the piano, the whole truck would shake.

After Re-Securing

After Re-Securing

We felt much better about the trip back. There was no stress about tipping. The piano never moved. However, it was very windy and we were afraid the wrapping we had done was going to blow off. The stretch tape began to shred and one of the tie-down straps was "buzzing" in the wind and started to shred. But we made it home without incident. I took some pictures of the wind damage.

After Trip