Billing for Sostenuto Work

[Zen Reinhardt]

Hi David!

First, congratulations on your RPT status.  I think I remember you as one
of the witnesses at one of the master tunings (master gang-bangs) that went
on a good part of Tuesday night before the convention.  Also, many thanks
for your acknowledgement of us examiners and wanna-be-examiners in a recent
post.

Now, for your billing question.  Let's face it ... upright sostenutos can
be a nuisance or they can be a piece of cake, depending on how they were
constructed and what adjustments have to be made.  For now, my best
suggestion would be to try to figure out how long the job would have taken
if this hadn't been your first encounter with this problem and charge
accordingly.  In doing so, also figure in the frequency of occurrence of
this problem.  Given that true sostenuto mechanisms are relatively rare in
uprights, you have the option of figuring in a scarcity factor.

Now to go outside of billing matters.  What kind of upright are we talking
about anyway?  Steinway?  Yamaha?  Something else?  The story goes that
Steinway at one time used neoprene tabs on its upright sostenuto
mechanisms, and my, the stories I've heard about the difficulties in
regulating them.  They were notoriously difficult and did take a long time,
or so I understand.

What was the nature of the problem?  A friend once said, "It's easy -- just
keep in mind that the only time the sostenuto can work is when the dampers
are lifted from the strings."  He was right.  And yes, sometimes a damper
regulation job comes as part of the package, and that can take awhile (so
charge for that accordingly).  It's axiomatic -- the more consistent the
functioning of the dampers, the easier it will be to adjust the sostenuto
and the better the results.

Do you have the Technical Reference Manual from Steinway?  That has very
specific instructions on how to adjust upright sostenuto mechanisms.  It's
a great manual to have even if you don't service a lot of Steinways.

Good luck --

ZR!  RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net

----------
> From: Vanderhoofven <dkvander@clandjop.com>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: billing
> Date: Friday, August 15, 1997 5:58 PM
> 
> Dear Friends,
> 
> I did some work tuning and regulating a newer upright piano.  I was
pleased
> with everything I did except the adjustment of the sostenuto pedal, which
> was screwed up to begin with.  After 2 hours of work on the sostenuto, it
> is now slightly less bad!  This was my first time ever to work on an
> upright sostenuto, and I don't feel good about charging the customer to
> learn to do something new, especially when the results were much less
than
> satisfactory.
> 
> How would you handle a situation like this?
> 
> I know that a doctor would go ahead and charge, even if his patient
didn't
> get any better, but I don't feel right in doing that.  My "patient"
didn't
> get better, and I feel that the customer should pay for results.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Sincerely,
> David
> 
> 
> David A. Vanderhoofven, RPT
> Joplin, Missouri, USA        
> e-mail:  dkvander@clandjop.com
> 
> web page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/
> #pianotech page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/ircpiano.html
>