YZN Life Piano Tuning Kit Review
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, which can provide compensation to me at no cost to you if you decide to purchase.
Piano Tuning Hammer kits found on Amazon offer a wide variety of kit combinations and quality of goods.
The "YZN Life" piano tuning kit is halfway decent for a tuning kit from Amazon, largely due to the lever, kit case, and miscellaneous tools.
This is another tool kit that will at least get you started, though upgrading your toolkit overtime is something to keep in the back of the mind.
YZN Life Piano Tuning Kit Case
Tuning kit cases are rather convenient when first starting out.
All of the tools look nicely put together and allow for a technician to quickly grab what they need.
Some of the tools in this kit aren't that great. Though, it's easy to swap out one of the inferior tools with a better on for a more complete kit.
I love the layout of all the tools and the overall appearance. Though, it will be necessary for beginners to swap out some of these tools for better ones.
The YZN Life Piano Tuning Hammer
For a beginner level hammer, this one is acceptable.
The lever is thicker which provides more rigidity necessary to tune pianos with less effort.
In other tuning kits from Amazon, the tuning hammers that come with the kits are often of the lowest quality that the market can support. Here, this hammer will support a technician who really wants to learn for a good price.
Philips head and flat head screwdriver for piano technicians
Early on, the most valuable tool for a technician is a philips head screwdriver as well as a flat head screwdriver.
As time goes on, it's necessary to upgrade the quality and variety of screwdrivers to carry on-hand. As well as adding other basic tools overtime.
Pin polisher
This tool is commonly used as a polisher to either clean or polish keypins underneath the piano keys that guide the motion of the piano keys.
I've found that using a clean cloth and some metal polisher gel is more effective at thoroughly polishing the keypins than this wooden stick.
Some technicians prefer this regardless, it's all a matter of taste.
Tiny hammer for piano technicians
There are limited uses for this tiny hammer.
The only purpose for this hammer off the top of my head is to adjust the jack position in the window.
While there may be other valid uses for this miniature hammer, I find that the size of this tool deems it unpractical for everyday use.
Piano Tuning Temperament Strip
The kit came with a generic temperament strip to complete the kit.
It's best to order temperaments of specific sizes to suite specific needs for the piano technician.
Without overcomplicating things, it's nice to see that the kit includes a temperament strip to get anyone started.
Felt Mute for Piano Tuning
Felt mutes are a traditional tool for every piano tuner.
Though, it's odd that the kit only comes with 1 felt mute.
Generally, it's nice to have a few extra mutes, instead of only 1 that you have to keep track of.
"Papps Mute"
Technicians love the "Papps mute" to mute for hard-to-reach areas of the piano strings that are more difficult to mute with other mutes.
Occasionally, this mute will break in one way or the other, so it's nice to have a few of these on hand.
I always recommend to have redundancy with your tools so that you never run out, having more than 1 of these mutes would be best.
YZN Life Piano Kit Tuning fork
Unfortunately, this tuning fork measures at about 444 hertz.
When warm, the tuning fork only lowers its pitch to roughly 442 hertz.
The international standard pitch is 440 hertz. Unfortunately, because this tuning fork measures too high at various temperatures, there's no way to further modify the tuning fork to lower its pitch.
This tuning fork is unsuitable for piano tuning use. Please heed this recommendation!
Piano Tuning Tweezers
Tweezers are always handy in a variety of different repairs.
Come to think of it, I only have 1 set of tweezers in my tool kit...
Having ample tool redundancy is a large contributor to having a successful appointment after only the 1st visit. This is part of the reason why I'll be happy to add these to my kit!
Awl for Piano Technicians
The kit comes with an "Awl." I don't often find a use for this tool, so I generally don't carry one with me.
However, the other day I had a specific use for it, so I may end up adding this to my tool bag as well.
This tool seems a little dangerous, but I've never had a problem handling them. So just be careful!
Rubber Mutes for Piano Tuning
The handles that come along with the miniature rubber mutes are too large.
The result of this is that this muting tool as a whole will feel "off-balance."
What I mean by this is that when the mute is between the piano strings, the handle will lean quite dramatically and weigh down the mute, causing it to be less effective when muting strings.
Constant repositioning of the mute may be required due to the over-sized handle which pries the mute away from where the tuner had it positioned.
I use rubber mutes every day to tune pianos. The drawback here is that they get old and lose their flexibility, ability to stick between the strings, and can wear down at the edges.
The good news is that piano mutes are inexpensive. I'll definitely incorporate these mutes into my tool bag.
There's nothing like new rubber mutes after working with ones that have aged.
I'd also like to point out that these can/should be cut or trimmed off at the tips of the long wedges. This is because I find that there's extra material at the narrow point that isn't useful and mostly gets in the way.
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Disclosure: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links, which can provide compensation to me at no cost to you if you decide to purchase.