Dear List, My question is how to figure a fair labor rate to charge a dealer for vertical regulation work. This is my third vertical regulation, so I'm thinking I should certainly charge "learning" rates since I am not as fast as an experienced RPT. It will help me greatly to know how long it takes you to do a complete vertical regulation. No fudging, please! ;-) Below is listed what was done and the time it took. If you can spare the time, could you give me an idea of about how long it would take you to do the same thing? Any great ideas to help me speed up...hey, that'd be quite nice of you, too! Thanks so much for any help you can give. Any constructive criticism is also welcomed. John Formsma *************** The piano is a 1978 Everett studio (almost the size of an upright). My first visit on Thursday found the piano with many sticking keys and in need of regulation. I was there 1 1/2 hrs and eased the key bushings with the Pianotek key easing iron and spent the rest of the time diagnosing. Had to make a second trip Saturday after getting approval from the dealer for the regulation. 9:00 - 10:40 ( 1 hr, 40 min ) -lube all action centers w/ Protek -tighten all hammer and all wippen flange screws (damper flange screws were OK) -steam the cupped wippen cushion felts, then dry ironed them -lube damper rod hinges -align hammers to strings -- corrected 3 twisted hammer shanks ) -spaced 4 wippens 10:40 - 11:20 ( 40 min ) -clean all key pins w/ Flitz and strips of bushing felt -polish w/ a clean strip of felt, then lube all key pins w/ Prolube 11:20 - 11:35 ( 15 min ) -Prolube all capstans, replace keys -tightened plate screws 11:35 - 11:55 ( 20 min ) -square/space white keys (forgot to do the black keys, but was able to correct that while key leveling) 12:00 - 12:30 lunch 12:30 - 1:40 ( 1 hr, 10 min ) -aligned bass section wippens to capstans (All bass wippens were misaligned to the right of the capstans. Is there a way to shift the bass wippens over in a wholesale manner rather than papering all the flanges? I tried loosening the main action rail screws while the action was in place, but that yielded little if any improvement. What I ended up doing for time's sake was papering about 20 of the 30 wippen flanges. They all needed it, but it was taking up so much time I had to compromise.) 1:40 - 1:55 (15 min ) -align backchecks to catchers 2:00 - 2:30 ( 30 minutes ) -determined correct key dip/hammer blow ratio. ( I think I went way over time here, but I wanted to make sure so I did some additional head scratching. ) 2:30 - 3:50 ( 1 hr, 20 min ) -Leveled all keys -returned various tools/items to the car (key easing iron, heat gun, etc.) 3:50 - 4:50 ( 1 hr ) -set white key dip and black key dip 5:00 - 5:45 (45 min ) -Tuning Total work time was 7 hrs 55 min. I will return to finish the regulation, but that was all I had time to do on Saturday. I do plan to buy the labor booklet from PTG which will probably give me the answers to my questions, but I'm never thinking about it from 9-5.
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