[CAUT] performance piano caster selection

[Porritt, David]

John:

For the same appearance reason, we put some of the wide casters on our Recital hall D.  We cut the legs off and installed them.  If you look carefully, you see that the legs are not the characteristic shape, but I never had anyone say anything about it.  

As far as moving, they work better than a stage truck.  Roll very nicely and they do roll easily enough that you need to lock the wheels so the piano won't walk away from the pianist.

dp


David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of John Minor
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 10:48 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] performance piano caster selection

Our director is unhappy with the look of the traditional grand "truck" 
dollie on one of our 7' performance grands. The preferred look is the 3 
1/2" $300 each brass casters which require the purchase of a shorter leg 
at a cost of $1,355.

  I'm curious what other institutions use instead of the traditional 
grand truck dollie. Pianotek carries a heavy duty Darnell concert grand 
caster, but I'm concerned about how these will hold up with frequent 
moving on a stage. They also carry some nice looking wider brass 
casters, but I'm concerned about raising the height of the keyboard.

Thanks for any input.

John Minor
University of Illinois