[CAUT] Guidelines/piano ages...

[Porritt, David]

Fred:

We are taking quite a different tack here at SMU.  I personally believe
that our 34 Steinway grands are at least as solid as new ones, and that
we can get better return for our money by rebuilding them than by
trading them.  I don't do the rebuilding as we send them out to
rebuilding shops although I sometimes do the action rebuilds.  I don't
think it's hard to make people understand the cost benefit of doing
this.  As to outsourcing the rebuilding work that should come under the
same budget as purchasing new, albeit at a better return for the money.


We did buy two new "B"s and two new "M"s this year trading off some
brands of pianos that I didn't see as long term instruments, but we did
rebuild one "B" this summer that is now better than either of the new
ones.  I for one am thrilled to death that our piano faculty understands
the value of doing this.  Our local Steinway dealer is somewhat less
enthusiastic about our approach.

dave

David M. Porritt
dporritt@smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Fred Sturm
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 2:46 PM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Guidelines/piano ages...

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

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