Greetings,
Geoff writes:
<< checking them every once in a while will likely keep
them tight enough to maintain a stable plate and subsequently a stable
tuning. Any more than that is overkill, and possibly not a good thing. And
as always, the key here is ymmv. >>
I don't disagree. I was trying (albeit, apparently, poorly), to be
more specific. So, once again into the attic I use for a mind...
I was thinking primarily of timing the school's piano maintenance. I
see them regularly, but have put all plate tightening considerations into the
middle of the summer. I used to just tighten them whenever I was doing
something other than tuning, like action adj, etc., 'cause I had the tools out.
This scattered the times of tightening (TOT) erratically over the course of the
year. What I noticed was that pianos tightened in winter were continually
needing more tightening than the ones I checked and or tightened in summer.
So, I do bolts in the summer. If the lag bolts don't move then,
with a fair torque on the T-handle, I leave them alone for another year. They
will be loose in the winter, but if I leave them alone, they will be tight next
summer. IF I snug them down right after Christmas, they will be real tight
that summer, but WAYYYY looser the next winter.
What is left of the tattered rag of my logic tells me that I am
accelerating the damage to the wood fiber of the rims by tightening steel against dry
wood, since there is no room for the coming summer's expansion and once again,
fiber/cell damage occurs. Bolts are not requiring so much movment, anymore.
First time visits to any piano are a different thing, I always check the
rim bolts just to see what's happening. I bet most of us have found some
neglected plate bolts to take more than a full turn.
Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
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