<html> <body> This post is really a keeper, Ed. Thank you. If you find yourself idly meandering through "ETC, ETC........." some day in your thoughts, and come up with a few more durability jewels hiding in the cracks, I'm sure we'd enjoy seeing them. Susan Kline At 08:06 PM 9/29/2006, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Inre Vanderbilt, Joel writes: < The Wall Street Journal article this week lead me to believe your Chancellor is filling the coffers quite well.>>     Yes, we are well financed.  Of late, Martha Ingram donated $ 250,000,000 to Vanderbilt, so Blair School of Music got a new concert hall, new D, new building wing, etc.       One thing that helps is that we are using a lot of pianos that I began restoring in the early 1980's.  The work was done in accordance to the procedures I learned from David Betts and Bill Garlick, and time has proven the durability of their techniques.  This makes it easier to sell the value of rebuilding vs. loaner or trading in old pianos for new.       One of our senior piano faculty is using an M that was done in 1983 and is still performing well, (albeit getting a little light and brassy).  That action job was billed at $ 1750 at the time, so the last 23 years of use seems like a bargain.  The administration now accepts that $9,500 for a complete new action will also be seen as a bargain in 23 more years, so they are happy to fund that rather than spend $ 50,000 for a new piano!       Refusing to cut corners, using the best materials available, and putting in the time to do the best work requires a little faith on the front end, but after standing the test of time, proves to be the best support for funding top-dollar work that I can find.       There are a lot of things that go into it: ie, damper wires that are not only polished, but aligned so that they don't press into the guide bushings, insures that the damper felt is going to stay in the same travel and the felt lasts longer.   NEVER pushing a mute into a trichord without lifting the wedges helps longevity, too.  (how many techs always lift the damper out of the way before moving the mute through the wound trichords on a D? This is important!)   Proper alignment of the underlevers to key-end felt is crucial to durability.       Stopping the damper pedal travel via felt blocks on the trapwork levers directly over the pedal rods prevents someone's foot force from finding its way to the upstop rail. Same goes for the sostenuto; that intermediate lever can be broken if the original felt block by the pitman is made to take the full force of the pedal, I like to stop it against the keybed directly over the pedal rod, too.  Una corda is often tricky, there are often cut-out recesses under there, but a leather or hard felt stop on the top of the shift lever can fashioned. This prevents the keyframe contact point from gradually getting crushed by the pedal jamming it against the stop screw.      I think fastidious traveling of the shanks improves the durability of the pinning,( I pin a little firmer on school pianos).   Making sure there is no lost motion between jack and knuckle allows the knuckle to stay round for longer periods of time.  Coordinating the blow,let-off, and keydip to prevent the jack from jamming allows the let-off punchings to live longer.  Firm jack pinning, (4-5 grams) doesn't slow repetition down at all, but prevents jacks from going off-center with all the attendant lopsided wear and failure that ensues.  I use hide glue because I will need to replace parts in the future and it makes it soooo easy.     Needling sufficient resilience into the hammers seems to let them live longer as opposed to leaving them so hard that all of the impact force is concentrated in the strike zone, causing a more rapid erosion of the felt.  Hammer tails don't need to be roughened if they are cut squarely on a 3" radius and the back-checks are properly angled. I have back-checks from the 1930's in this school that are just fine, while I have seen poorly adjusted new ones wear out in 10 years of heavy use.  It helps to taper tails as little as possible,too.    Polished and nick-free front pins greatly increase key bushing life.  HOW can the Steinway factory have let so many of these pins be damaged in the spacing process?  The bushings will last for about the warranty period, then you have a sloppy keyboard. I bush keys with as little caul pressure as I can, since the more pressure on the glue, the less glue is pressed into the felt, which effectively decreases the working dimension of the felt.  Bushings wear longer .  ETC, ETC......... There is a way to build actions so that they last.  It takes longer and costs a little more, but I want every action I rebuild to go out there as advertising for my work.  I live with almost all of my rebuilds for decades, so I want them to be as maintenance-free as possible. It frees up budgets to cover more pianos.    Regards,   Ed Foote RPT <a href="http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html" eudora="autourl"> http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html</a> <a href="http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html" eudora="autourl"> www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html</a>  </blockquote></body> </html>