older Steinway whippens

[Susan Kline]

At 04:39 AM 8/13/98 -0600, Tom Seay wrote:

>One means of deciding whether or not to replace action parts is this - what
>would Steinway do if the piano were sent back to their restoration center
>for rebuilding? I suspect that in most cases, Steinway would NOT keep the
>original action parts, opting instead to replace them with new Steinway
>parts, especially if verdigris is present. If the manufacturer of the piano
>is willing to replace old parts with new ones, why are some of us so
>reluctant to do the same?
>
>What this all boils down to is the inevitable conflict between what is best
>for the piano and what your clients can afford. I agree with Susan that
>each case must be decided individually. Because of all the variables
>involved, there is simply no answer which applies to every situation all of
>the time.
>
>Tom
>
>Tom Seay
>Piano Tech Office
>School of Music
>The University of Texas at Austin
>t.seay@mail.utexas.edu

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Dear Tom,

With all due regards to the illustrious firm, I am unwilling to delegate 
responsibility for decisions to others. For one thing, we don't know what
the Steinway rebuilding facility would do, since they haven't seen the
piano; for another, they are human beings, too, and have their own
circumstances, which may be different than mine or my customer's. I.e. they
may be used to customers having more money than mine might, or the time
constraints on them might be worse than mine. 

My approach is to look and try to figure out the overall best approach;
then to ask advice about anything I feel unsure of (for which email is
great!); then to go with what I think is the best choice; then to follow
through and correct any things that didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

Best,

Susan


Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

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