Hey, no fair! I'm out there in the "Land of NO Mercy" with seven pianos on the list an hour and a half away from home, with (nearly) EVERY one of the owners saying "It hasn't been tuned since prior to the invention of mice, which are (since) in evidence, but while you're here - could you fix...(insert curse)". Today, I removed 2 unregulated but mercifully unplugged heater bars, traveled 4.2 parsecs (at worp 0.0000125 (mach 0.014)), and juggled scheduling nine times while chasing the phantoms of disrepair, ill conceived design and production, unavailability of piano access at any specific time, and cumulative neglect (the pianos, not me. I got lots of attention today) and return to the sanctuary of home and hearth to find I've been put on the spot by the large hairy technician that isn't even all that hairy (yet, but I have hope). So be it. I'm too old and tired to pretend to be bionic, but I can still make a bass bridge out of horizontally laminated pinblock stock (Delignit, or the 11 ply Schaff stuff I used many moons ago) in about an hour and a half. That's faster than I can repair the root, recap, etc, so I obviously prefer to replace rather than recap when I can get the darn thing out of the piano in the first place. A couple of episodes of epoxying in place that took twice the time blasting the old bridge and apron out and making new ones from scratch (as necessary depending on the apron) would have taken have generally biased me toward making replacements and torching the originals. I hear that "A" type personalities burn bridges at both ends, but I prefer all at once. There's a certain sense of "closure" in global flambe'. In addition to being more efficient and educational, making new bass bridges instills the illusion (in the customer, hopefully) that the tech is nominally omnipotent, or at least adequately prestidigitational, and generally enhances the subjective impression of the final outcome toward the positive. "Gee, it's really shiny, ain't it?" Gettin' the sucker off in the first place is the rub, from the tech's perspective. Removing and replacing strings takes the time that removing and replacing strings takes, as does lowering and raising tension. That's a given, though variable, with any bridge repair/replacement. This doesn't factor differently into any proposed bridge repair procedure than it does in any other. I suppose the bottom line is the difference between the estimated time it takes to get the bridge and apron off, and the actual time it takes, deducted from the difference between the time it takes to epoxy the existing mess, verses the time it takes to fabricate a new bridge, added to the time it takes to attach the new bridge assembly after fabrication verses the setting on your butt time required for the epoxy to cure. Give or take. I trust that answers your question. Ron N
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