[CAUT] Guidelines/piano ages...

[Fred Sturm]

On 1/24/05 1:03 PM, "Conrad Hoffsommer" <hoffsoco@luther.edu> wrote:

> Average age is about 43, but does not take into account rebuilding.  How do
> youz guyz and galz factor that into the equation?

That's a troublesome question. If rebuilding means complete remanufacture
(new board, bridges, block, action parts), and it was a quality job, my
opinion is that it became a new piano at that point. Lesser degrees of
rebuild are harder to assess. It would depend whether the board and block
were in "mint condition" (IOW, probably the piano lived in reasonable
humidity control), or similar judgment factors.
    My own opinion is that we (or at least the majority of us) shouldn't be
in the business of making pianos last forever. We should be trying to
develop a permanent program of gradual and consistent replacement. And our
own jobs should focus mostly on keeping our pianos at "performance level"
rather than turning old, worn out pianos into new. So with that in mind, and
from the point of view of creating a replacement program, I'd give all
pianos their actual ages, with the exception of pianos remanufactured as
described earlier. Of course, if you have no replacement program at all, and
you're faced with an ancient inventory, you gotta do what you gotta do (IOW,
rebuild what you have time for). But that doesn't stop you from creating an
ideal plan where pianos actually go out the door and are replaced with new
ones on a regular and predictable basis.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico