Hi David, I regularly get readings of 2.5 - 4.5% in winter at a private school I service, using the same Mannix hygrometer. (Outside on a hot summer day, and in a solar heated car, I get below 2%.) At my university, i get below 10%, but haven't yet dipped below 5%. In any case, yes, pianos survive those conditions. Things happen: plastic keytops develop hairline cracks (just a visual problem, they're not pulling loose); keyslips become difficult to remove because they are longer than the gap is wide (and other similar fitting issues); and, yes, a few soundboard cracks appear, though far less than I would expect. The RH doesn't get above 60% generally, and the high end of the season is fairly short, and I think this is a big help: the wood doesn't swell enough to crush fibers. Some pianos that come, say, from England simply fall apart. I had to remove the lid hinge ("piano" style) from a Broadwood grand and cut/file away a total of at least 1 cm of brass so that it would re-install lying flat. And there is buckling of veneer. But the piano is fine. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu On Dec 8, 2008, at 8:26 PM, David Skolnik wrote: > Dear List-oires - > I don't generally take the time to simply "share" some experience, > unless there's a particular point I'd like to make, or question to > ask. This time, it's just sharing. > > My current psychromatic tool of choice is an upscale version of the > one Pianotek shows on page C-1 of their catalog. It is a Mannix > (now General) EP8706, which claims to be accurate to +/- 2% as > opposed to 5%, and which can be re calibrated by the user (me). > I've checked it against a more expensive gauge and it seems quite > close. Today, in a couple of public school buildings, I got > readings as low as 4.5%. I breathed on it to make sure it wasn't > broken, or I wasn't dead. Neither was the case. I know, within the > context of the recent thread "What to do", Jim Busby said that his > collection of some 420 instruments is frequently exposed to levels > lower than 10%. That seems disturbing enough, but how long would > anything last, with extended exposure to 5%? > > Anyway, I was impressed. > > David Skolnik > Hastings on Hudson, NY > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081209/16c347b2/attachment.html>
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