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 _______________________________________________ caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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