[CAUT] durability (was funding)

[Alan McCoy]

Our current rate is 1.78% of inventory. It'll take us about 56 years at this
rate to completely replace or rebuild our inventory!

We are jumping for joy at having any budget at all. Before this summer we
were at an infinite number of years. A long time......

Alan
-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy at mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627


> From: <Bdshull at aol.com>
> Reply-To: "College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>" <caut at ptg.org>
> Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 02:00:26 -0400 (EDT)
> To: <caut at ptg.org>
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] durability (was funding)
> 
> Ed,
> 
> Although your procedures took significant investment and time on your part to
> learn, what you have shared here would be the basis of an excellent CAUT
> class in the future, if you were willing.  I'd sure want to attend it....
> 
> Bill Shull
> 
> La Sierra University, Riverside, CA,  where we just doubled the annual
> maintenance budget this year to .6% of inventory value
> 
>  In a message dated 9/29/2006 8:14:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, A440A at aol.com
> writes:
> Inre Vanderbilt, Joel writes:
> 
> << I read this to mean that you may be doing well.
> The Wall Street Journal article this week lead me
> to believe your Chancellor is filling the coffers
> quite well.>>
> 
>     Yes, we are well financed.  Of late, Martha Ingram donated $ 250,000,000
> to Vanderbilt, so Blair School of Music got a new concert hall, new D, new
> building wing, etc.
>      One thing that helps is that we are using a lot of pianos that I began
> restoring in the early 1980's.  The work was done in accordance to the
> procedures I learned from David Betts and Bill Garlick, and time has proven
> the 
> durability of their techniques.  This makes it easier to sell the value of
> rebuilding vs. loaner or trading in old pianos for new.
>      One of our senior piano faculty is using an M that was done in 1983 and
> is still performing well, (albeit getting a little light and brassy).  That
> action job was billed at $ 1750 at the time, so the last 23 years of use
> seems 
> like a bargain.  The administration now accepts that $9,500 for a complete
> new 
> action will also be seen as a bargain in 23 more years, so they are happy to
> fund that rather than spend $ 50,000 for a new piano!
>      Refusing to cut corners, using the best materials available, and putting
> in the time to do the best work requires a little faith on the front end, but
> after standing the test of time, proves to be the best support for funding
> top-dollar work that I can find.
>      There are a lot of things that go into it: ie, damper wires that are not
> only polished, but aligned so that they don't press into the guide bushings,
> insures that the damper felt is going to stay in the same travel and the felt
> lasts longer.   NEVER pushing a mute into a trichord without lifting the
> wedges helps longevity, too.  (how many techs always lift the damper out of
> the way 
> before moving the mute through the wound trichords on a D? This is
> important!)   Proper alignment of the underlevers to key-end felt is crucial
> to 
> durability.  
>      Stopping the damper pedal travel via felt blocks on the trapwork levers
> directly over the pedal rods prevents someone's foot force from finding its
> way to the upstop rail. Same goes for the sostenuto; that intermediate lever
> can 
> be broken if the original felt block by the pitman is made to take the full
> force of the pedal, I like to stop it against the keybed directly over the
> pedal rod, too.  Una corda is often tricky, there are often cut-out recesses
> under 
> there, but a leather or hard felt stop on the top of the shift lever can
> fashioned. This prevents the keyframe contact point from gradually getting
> crushed 
> by the pedal jamming it against the stop screw.
>     I think fastidious traveling of the shanks improves the durability of the
> pinning,( I pin a little firmer on school pianos).   Making sure there is no
> lost motion between jack and knuckle allows the knuckle to stay round for
> longer periods of time.  Coordinating the blow,let-off, and keydip to prevent
> the 
> jack from jamming allows the let-off punchings to live longer.  Firm jack
> pinning, (4-5 grams) doesn't slow repetition down at all, but prevents jacks
> from 
> going off-center with all the attendant lopsided wear and failure that
> ensues. 
> I use hide glue because I will need to replace parts in the future and it
> makes it soooo easy.
>    Needling sufficient resilience into the hammers seems to let them live
> longer as opposed to leaving them so hard that all of the impact force is
> concentrated in the strike zone, causing a more rapid erosion of the felt.
> Hammer 
> tails don't need to be roughened if they are cut squarely on a 3" radius and
> the 
> back-checks are properly angled. I have back-checks from the 1930's in this
> school that are just fine, while I have seen poorly adjusted new ones wear
> out 
> in 10 years of heavy use.  It helps to taper tails as little as possible,too.
>    Polished and nick-free front pins greatly increase key bushing life.  HOW
> can the Steinway factory have let so many of these pins be damaged in the
> spacing process?  The bushings will last for about the warranty period, then
> you 
> have a sloppy keyboard. I bush keys with as little caul pressure as I can,
> since the more pressure on the glue, the less glue is pressed into the felt,
> which 
> effectively decreases the working dimension of the felt.  Bushings wear
> longer .  
> ETC, ETC......... There is a way to build actions so that they last.  It
> takes longer and costs a little more, but I want every action I rebuild to go
> out 
> there as advertising for my work.  I live with almost all of my rebuilds for
> decades, so I want them to be as maintenance-free as possible. It frees up
> budgets to cover more pianos.
> Regards,   
> 
> Ed Foote RPT 
> http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
> www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html