College pianos maintenance schedule

[Avery Todd]

Hi John,

   You've already had some good comments so I don't have much to add. One
thing you might consider is using leather bushings on your 'heavy use'
pianos. They should last much, much longer than the felt. I've only just
started doing that, on one of our concert instruments but intend to
continue on many of the others as rebuilding time permits. Primarily on
practice room grands and on piano teachers' studio pianos, as needed.
   As far as some of the other things that have been mentioned, I'm
including some posts from a previous thread on this general type of
subject. Although Horace's post refers primarily to concert use instruments
and Jim's is primarily about tunings, you might get some guidelines that
would be useful in your situations.
   Hope this helps. Good luck. You'll probably need it.

Avery

>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
_________________________________________________________________________
>From Jim Coleman, Sr.

Priority system at ASU from 1974 to 1989:

1.  Concert prep for every concert.
2.  Breakage or failures get fixed the same day I receive reports.
3.  Piano prof's studio pianos at least once every month.
4.  Performance practice room pianos at least every 2 to 3 weeks.
5.  Classroom pianos 3 to 4 times a year.
6.  Other studios 1 or 2 times a year. One particular studio every 5 years.
7.  Other practice rooms twice a year
8.  2 or 3 grand hammer sets per year.
9.  1 grand rebuild a year.

I forgot to mention: Every Monday was broken string fixing day. This was
primarily for Performance Practice pianos. There was always plenty to do.

Jim Coleman, Sr.     (I hope this is close to what I wrote before.)

> >Somewhere in the archives I stated a priority system which I developed
> >at the beginning of my 15 years at ASU (the undefeated football school
> >this year, Rose Bowl etc.). This system was designed to be conservative
> >and yet meet the needs of the musicians.
__________________________________________________________________________
>From Horace Greeley:

First, I must (with no modesty at all) relate that the vast majority of my
work over 30 years has been on concert/recording instruments.

These beasts have demands placed upon them that few private instruments
ever do (the exceptions being obvious).

My position on maintenance of these instruments flows from watching many
instruments over time, and being called in to do various things on many
others.

Suggested guidelines include, but are by no means limited to:

        1.- Restring the capo sections _at least_ once every two years.
                (Using existing pins, as possible, doing maintenance on
                the capo itself, bridges, etc.)
        2.- Complete restringing of the instrument every 5-7 years.
                (Yes, with whatever is needed at that time.)
        3.- Damper replacement with complete restringing, or as needed.
        4.- When stringing, do not go over 4/0 pins on Ds (period, no
                negotiation) or 5/0s on Bs (and smaller, depending on
                condition of the block).
        5.- When stringing, look for opportunities to improve tone and
                response.  These might include changing the angle
                of deflection (I use 1 to 1.5 degress, depending on the
                condition of the board) through plate placement or
                shimming/grinding of the aliquots.
        6.- Depending on overall use, plan on hammers, shanks and flanges
                roughly every 7-10 years.  There are too many obvious
                variables to waste errmail space worrying about them
                here.
        7.- ALWAYS keep a VERY sharp eye on the board.  I do not keep
                exhaustive records of this, although they might be helpful
                in institutional settings.  What I do do is to check crown and
                bearing both before and after restringing operations.
                These days there are sufficient (and sufficiently competent)
                rebuilders around to make board/block replacement a viable
                alternative to replacing an entire instrument.

A starting point.

(These figures are not entirely arbitrary, they are the ones used for many
years by Steinway, London.)

Bye the by, Newton, in another post, talks about using metric wire on
Yamahas.  I would extend this to trying to identify (whenever reasonably
possible) the type of wire used on a given piano.  This means, of course,
that one winds up with several different types of wire...

___________________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4893
713-743-3226
atodd@uh.edu
http://www.music.uh.edu/