Breaking the one hour barrier

[Tvak@AOL.COM]

I'm going to miss all this business next month.  I'm having so much fun.  And 
due to tuning so many pianos in the past month and a half (about 10 a week!) 
my speed has improved: I did several one hour tunings this month.  A good 
piano with no pitch raise can take me one hour or less.  Unfortunately, those 
Lesters and Gulbransens still take me an hour and a half, and my client list 
is packed with those little gems.  I guess I shouldn't say complain about 
Lester pianos---I did two complete elbow replacements this month, both on 
Lester pianos, which paid for quite a few Christmas presents!
    Curiously, both Lesters had Dampp-Chaser dehumidifier bars installed, but 
no humidifier.  I specifically warned/asked both owners, "You don't plug this 
in, do you?" and they said that they didn't, but certainly it must have been 
used at some point, maybe by a previous owner.  (Indeed one of the pianos 
used to be in Florida.)  I know that elbows of this vintage are breaking on 
pianos all over America, but I wonder if the dryness from the dehumdifier can 
accelerate the process.  (Idiot-street-logic, which I specialize in, would 
dictate that it would.)

Tom Sivak