Frozen Piano

[Rob Kiddell]

As a tech whois living and working in Edmonton, I thought I'd chip
(grin) in my .002.

I have worked at a rebuilding shop where we routinely kept our old
stock in an unheated quanset (sp?). Temperatures plummet to - 40 C
(aka -40 F) in the winter in these parts, and humidity can drop below
10% R.H.

In my experience on dozens of assorted makes, Canadian and American,
and dozens of styles, from 20 year old spinets to turn of the century
grands, was that the cold was not a significant contrubuting factor
to any damage that these instruments sustained while in storage.

We would bring them into our loading bay, which was some 10 - 20 deg.
colder than room temp. overnight, then wheel (push, pull, drag) them
into the workshop, where they would sit for another day before any
panels were pulled off.

Damage to pinblocks and soundboards was invariably proir to cold
storage (as I was one of the techs buying the instruments).

Finish cracking would develop on some newer instruments, but we never
had a problem internally with any of our stored instuments from the
cold.

Spring is here at last,

8-)  Rob Kiddell

Rob Kiddell
C.A.P.T.
P.T.G. Associate
Edmonton, Canada