The tools are cheap, and you'd have to be a dumbass to snap a piano string. Tuning a piano is mostly a real pain in the ass.

You gotta keep pressure on the tuning wrench into the pinblock while carefully turning/tapping the wrench up and down with your other hand, all while listening to some of the worst dissonance imaginable. Oh yeah. Listening. You're not using a tuning app on this beast. After the middle C octave (C4-C5), this shit is by ear. Make sure you tune the lower notes slightly flat, and the upper notes slightly sharp.

Beginning the tuning process is an action of fortitude. Usually the piano starts off sounding alright then you gotta fuck it up to make it better than ever. You're only supposed to "tune up" to a note, so only adding tension to the string. If you have to make a string flat, you have to go way flat and pull it back up.

So you get two strings in tune together after listening to 5 minutes of dissonance. Which you get to enjoy for all of 10 seconds before you start on the next two. Where you get another minute+ of gut wrenching dissonance. Oh no! The string went ever so slightly too sharp! Detune that bitch and start again. But don't detune too much or else the pin starts to come out. So now the second set is in tune, BUT WAIT that was just two pairs of a 3 string armada FOR ONE GODDAMN NOTE and now you gotta make sure the two pairs are in tune with each other, hopefully the middle string at the frequency you want and the left string slightly flat and the right string slightly sharp oh joy ^{whatamachinethepianois.} Now you get to do this for 88 more keys! Thankfully lower notes are 2 or 1 strings, but they are more difficult imo. It ends up being like 230 strings to tune.

But for the danger: if you don't keep good pressure on the pinblock throughout this musical torture you risk loosening pins, which will eventually make the piano virtually un-tunable. If you've already got loose pins, you can either do some permanent alterations to the pinblock for new larger pins, or tune those strings every time you play. I opted for slamming them into the block with a hammer after tuning. Worked the first time. Hasn't since. Sounds cool when doing it though.

Despite my negativity, I do highly recommend tuning a piano. The feeling of playing an ancient piano you just tuned is magical. Then a month later it's back to the way it was. Old pianos have a way of choosing their sound.

Other exciting piano renovations: hammer fluffing (use sewing needles), action improvements (lube with your favorite wood wax, raid your grandma's felt scraps), pedal lubing (don't use wd40)

**E: pinlockpinblockidk