follow up: RE: New Stein. A loose hammer flanges

[John Delacour]

At 14:52 -0500 10/11/07, William Benjamin wrote:

>What do you feel is the ideal size?
>How long does it take to pin an entire set of flanges?
>
>Presently it takes me about a day, or eight hours.   I do like the 
>results I am getting, but I would like to know if I am in the ball 
>park on time.

That's nearly 6 minutes per centre.  I have always charged for the 
job at 1 minute per centre not including removing the parts from the 
rails and reassembly.  Pick up, decentre, broach, test, (rebroach, 
test), push in pin, cut ends flush, put down.  How can that take 6 
minutes?

>We all know there are people who restring inÊfour hours, but I am 
>not one of them.

Nor am I. I occasionally used a retired factory stringer in the past 
and he could string and chip up an upright in 4 hours at the age of 
70.  That is just over one minute per string.  The quality was 
"English factory quality".  If he had been trained to do high class 
work, it would probably have taken him 6 hours.  I reckon 8 hours for 
an upright not including preparatory work, because I am not doing it 
every day and because I'm fussy.  This is about the same as my 
colleague in the next town.

There is no virtue at all in taking longer over a job than it ought 
to take to do it well.  On the contrary, most jobs that do take 
longer are rarely done properly.

JD