All the evidence I've found so far suggests that the manufacturers of the day considered the life expectancy of their products to be about 20 to 30 years. By this time they assumed that the musicality of their instruments would have degraded to the extent that no discerning and respectable family would want to continue using them and would be back for a replacement. There was concern over what to do with all the "old" pianos that would be coming back to the dealers warerooms and the manufacturers were licking their chops in anticipation of this steady stream of new business. Well, we all know how well that worked out.and here we are, something over 100 years on wondering how to convince the owner of a piano that the manufacturer was prepared to write off some 70 or 80 years back that his piano, now with a catastrophic failure to a main structural member, may not be worth repairing. I'm all for rebuilding/remanufacturing these old things-but somewhere the dollars have to match reality. ddf Delwin D Fandrich Piano Design & Fabrication 620 South Tower Avenue Centralia, Washington 98531 USA del at fandrichpiano.com ddfandrich at gmail.com Phone 360.736.7563 From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Terry Farrell Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 5:41 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Plate Repair I didn't say it, but regardless of the manufacturer, when a piano is that old, your recommendation is quite appropriate IMHO. Terry Farrell On Dec 1, 2010, at 8:25 AM, J Patrick Draine wrote: Most of the Haines "original parts/heirloom aura" pianos I've encountered over the decades have been in pretty dreadful condition, and didn't appear to have been "built for the ages." Make sure you give them a quote for "complete remanufacture", along with that plate repair. If they negotiate for less, at least they are forewarned, in writing. Patrick Draine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101201/2699cb23/attachment.htm>
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