I am Hendrik Marais and I have rebuilt and tuned pianos since 2004
The workshop is in Diep River. Instruments in for restoration, the stools I build between jobs, and the tools I use, all on one floor.
See what is on the floorHow I learned it, and what I turn away
I served four years under Willem Basson in Salt River, who tuned for the City Hall for most of his working life and would not let me hold a tuning lever for the first eleven months. Before that I was a cabinetmaker, which is the half of this trade nobody talks about until the case comes off.
Between fourteen and eighteen instruments a year come through the bench for a full rebuild, and I tune about three hundred more in people’s houses. One man, one bench, so a restoration is booked out roughly seven months ahead and I do not pretend otherwise on the phone.
I do not take on digital pianos and I do not take on plastic actions. If the frame has a crack in it I will tell you it is firewood with a nice lid, and that you should keep the candlesticks and let the rest go.
On the floor at the moment
UprightsCame out of a house in Wynberg with a split bridge and a pin block that would not hold a note past Tuesday. New pin block, fully restrung, hammers rebuilt, and the walnut case polished back by hand rather than sprayed. It has stood at concert pitch on my floor for two years now, which is the only proof of a rebuild worth anything. 1.28 m high, 1.46 m wide and 62 cm deep, and it takes four people and a whole morning to move it up a flight of stairs.
R42 000.00Add to cart 
UprightsBuilt in Pretoria in the seventies, which is why the action is heavier than the German ones and part of why it is still standing here. Restrung with new dampers, the action fully regulated, and the teak cleaned back and waxed instead of sprayed. It is an honest first piano for a house with children in it and it will not sulk about a wet Cape winter. 1.14 m high, 1.42 m wide, 58 cm deep.
R28 500.00Add to cart 
GrandsStripped to bare wood and refinished in satin black over eleven weeks, with new hammers, shanks and flanges throughout. Fully regulated and voiced, and it is the best-sounding instrument on the floor at the moment by some distance. 1.52 m long and 1.48 m across the cheeks, so measure the room before you phone me. Delivery, the settling tune six weeks in, and the one after that are all in the price.
R145 000.00Add to cart 
Stools & benchesSolid kiaat frame with a proper twin-screw height adjustment, not the wobbly single-post thing that arrives in the box with a new piano. The top is sprung and covered in wool velvet. The seat is 55 by 34 cm and winds from 48 up to 61 cm, which covers a seven-year-old and her father off the same stool. I make them six at a time between rebuilds, so there is usually one standing ready and never more than four.
R3 900.00Add to cart 
Tools & feltA steel tuning lever with a star head that has fitted every pin I have met in this country, plus three rubber wedge mutes, a felt wedge and a temperament strip, rolled in canvas. This is what I hand to people who want to hold their own instrument steady between my visits, and to the two schools in Athlone that cannot have me every term. Bring it along to a tuning and I will show you how to use it without hurting anything.
R2 250.00Add to cart 
Tools & feltGraded hammer felt and damper felt cut for a standard upright, enough for a full set with a little spare for the ones you get wrong the first time. It is the same felt I use on the bench, brought in from Germany once a year because nobody makes it here any more. If you would rather not do it yourself, bring me the old hammers and I will re-cover them here for roughly the price of the kit again.
R1 480.00Add to cart Everything leaves here regulated, voiced and at concert pitch
Concert pitch means A at 440, set against a fork rather than a phone, with the action regulated to spec and the hammers needled until the top octave stops shouting at the room.
See the instruments
