College pianos maintenance schedule

Ron Nossaman nossaman@southwind.net
Fri Jun 26 08:07 MDT 1998


At 08:12 AM 6/26/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I need your help in suggesting a better plan for piano care at the college
>music department where I work. The plan we have now is merely disaster
>control.  The plan I am considering is: for grands, touchup regulation
>every year, consideration for key rebushing every three years, thorough
>regulation every six years, consideration for new hammers and dampers
>every twelve years, and consideration for restringing every eighteen
>years.  Uprights to receive the same but at five instead of three year
>increments.  Concert instruments to receive more attention with thorough
>regulation every two years.
>I would also be interested to hear about your college department piano
>tuning, regulating, reconditioning,  and/or rebuilding workload, also how
>many instruments, new instrument purchase plan, etc.
>Thank you for your help.
>Sincerely,
>John D. Chapman, rpt
>

Hi John,

Your biggest problem is going to be selling the bean counters *anything*
that costs them more than what they're already doing. Pianos are, after all,
immortal and never more than $100 away from usable. That said, here are my
recommendations.

Touch up regulation on grands every year is a good idea if you are talking
about maybe a half hour's work. If it takes more than that, you need full
regulations every two or three years instead, depending on usage and
expectation.  

Since any other action work done would require some follow up regulation, it
might be a good idea to evaluate the hammers, action centers, knuckles, key
bushings, etc. at each full regulation cycle. You can check your records as
to how long individual part sets have been in service and, if they are past
your minimum time in use determination and are suitably worn, you can issue
advance warning to the administration that the key bushings, or hammers
(what ever) will need to be replaced at the next full regulation. 

You might want to make the minimum service life of the hammers six years
instead of twelve, and evaluate with each regulation cycle after that. In
the primamy concert instruments, maybe even less, depending on usage and how
much radical voicing has to be done each year.   

Bottom line: Evaluating parts at shorter intervals will accomplish two
things. It will help to insure that the parts aren't changed too soon,
because their parking time has expired, or too late, because they became
intolerable two years into a six year evaluation cycle. Administrative types
don't like surprises and giving them one cycle advance warning even on
relatively short cycle times lets them shuffle maintenance costs into their
own list of disaster expenditures at relative leisure and seems to keep them
happy. You can also prioritize the pending jobs to give them something to
deferr. They are more likely to approve important work if they have less
important requests to refuse. It's a symetry kind of thing.

This kind of thing all comes down to how the instruments are used, the
quality of the instruments in the first place, the willingness and desire of
the administration to support the music program, and the available cash.
Good luck.

BTW: How often do you get the "Jonny Appleseed" comment?

 
 Ron 



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