College tuning etc

[Dave Doremus]

I'd like to ask the advice of college technicians out there. I recently
assumed the tuning chores at two local schools. This is my first
encounter with this situation and basically we are contracted to
tune every piano each semester, concerts as necessary and fix what
breaks as it breaks. What I would like to do is propose a rational
maintanence and upgrading program so that the instruments actually
can recover, over time, from years of the tuning only approach.
Do y'all have any guidelines or suggestions for maintaining and improving
heavily (ab)used pianos? How often do you schedule regulation, hammer
shaping, restringing etc so as not to get behind and have to play
catchup as I now have to?

Any advice greatly appreciated. Feel free to e-mail me directly
so as not to fill up the list with elementary stuff.

Thanks.

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Dave Doremus RPT
dbd01@www.gnofn.org
New Orleans