[CAUT] durability (was funding)

[A440A at aol.com]

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