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More on the Meaning of "RPT"  and
"Dampp-Chaser" Climate Control systems ,
plus more about Technology and Technicians

1

Serious Owners and maintenance.

"RPT" :

A fine automobile owner, as in BMW or Cadillac or Lexus, would rarely turn his fine machine over to a unknown mechanic for fear of unknown results.  The same reasoning is true of pianos.  Pianos are machines, and they have specific maintenance needs just like any other machine.

Serious owners should seek out an "RPT", or "Registered Piano Technician" to handle their piano maintenance.  The best reasons can be found in the definition of a on the official website of the Piano Technicians Guild which is the organization that confers this performance rating of "RPT" on qualified practitioners.

The real distinction of an RPT compared with a non RPT qualified technician is the immense amount of study, practice and personal dedication required of an RPT examinee to prepare for the examination requirements of the "RPT" title or designation.  The overall time and personal dedication required to pass the examination requirements of the PTGuild title called "RPT" are about the same as needed to acquire titles to legally practice law or medicine, which require roughly 7 years to complete.

This technology is a vast, complicated, subtle and sophisticated field of knowledge and practice — far beyond what most people would dream is involved.  The service which can be provided by an RPT who has invested all the time and expense to achieve the RPT status will be obvious to a piano owner at their first meeting.  An RPT will be able to assist the owner to solve any maintenance or repair or service problem that might arise on an acoustical-piano.

Special Notes:  (1) many women have become outstanding RPT technicians, and many of those authorities in various specializations of the field; 
(2) Certain disabled individuals have become famous in the field, in particular those with sight impairment or ambulation difficulties;  (3) Race or nationality bias is non-existent in the field.

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2

Tuning isn't just tuning.

RPT technology is many sided skill.

Like any other field of endeavor, the technician will usually specialize in some particular area of the field, even though he prepares to do all the different levels of service work that exist on a piano.

The several general areas of service work are:  "tuning" — adjusting the tension of the strings to produce correct pitches and to keep design tension correct for the whole sound producing mechanism; "regulating" the action—the keys and all other parts that actuate the hammers; then the hammers alone need expert care from time to time, and this is called "voicing"; and finally "repairs" — checking and adjusting or replacing the various other supporting parts of the mechanism, such as the pedals, the cabinet parts that open up to the keys or the strings, etc.

These general areas of service work occur on all instruments regardless of where they are located or what kind of use they receive.  Piano-instruments are everywhere, and are used for all kinds of purposes, but they are all much the same.  An instrument  in a famous school of music like ASU is the equivalent of a taxi cab that goes 100,000 miles in one year.  A home unit for a 5-year old student is equivalent to a car used by a retired person never driving beyond the local grocery store and church year after year. 

So there are home, school, professional venue units for concert halls, recording studios, and then there are the millions of instruments that are built new and sold each year which have to be prepared and maintained by the world's RPT technicians.  No two instruments are alike, and no one gets used just like another one.  Every job is a new challenge, even with the those that a technician services regularly.  They are machines, and each individual one has its own peculiarities and needs, and all these have service needs just like any other machine.  RPT Technicians are schooled in all these variables, and are the best equipped specialist mechanics to call upon to meet a piano's needs.

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3

The "unseen" areas of technology.

a)  Rebuilding and Refinishing.

Two other relatively "unseen" areas of technology activity that involve a large segment of technicians include the rebuilding and refinishing side of maintenance.  This is an area where the technician must literally "know it all".  He has to know about the theory of design, and how these theories vary from product to product.  He has to be highly skilled in replacing and sometimes actually manufacturing parts that are no longer in production.  This area of endeavor is truly a labor of love, and one of the most amazing aspects of it is that usually these kinds of skilled craftsmen do their own financing — the costs of the hundreds of different kinds of specialized tools needed for this kind of work is absolutely staggering, and the financial rewards are very modest for their sales and services.  There are many RPTs who have learned and practiced the performance side of piano work who consider this area the ultimate and consummate level of all work in life, such as to work for a year to refinish and rebuild a wonderful machine that could be 50, 100, or even 150 years old.  To see these superb machines return to life is a joy to them that nothing else can replace.

b)  New piano prep.

Another somewhat unnoticed area of technology are the technicians who work to prepare new units for sale, "out of the box" from the factories.  It takes up to a week of expert technical work to finish out all the details needed for a machine that goes to a concert hall.  Then it takes continuing work, often by these same technicians, for a unit to be serviced while it is being played and used or "broken in" when it is in a concert venue.  It may take 2 years of this kind of attention for a fine concert grand to finally get thoroughly broken in and to be able to perform at its best.

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c)  Climate Control Installation.

One more area of specialization in technology is the installation of "climate control systems".  Pianos are machines made of wood, steel, and iron.  All these materials react to temperature and humidity differently, and therefore changes in temperature or humidity affect its condition directly.  Most users and owners  think that their wonderful machine stays in tune based on how much it is used.  This is only partially true, as they can be used very vigorously, yet not influence the tuning much at all.  But let Mother Nature come along and change the humidity on us, and She can put our "machine" out of tune in a matter of hours.  The reason for this is the different kinds of materials making up a piano-object work at great odds with each other when temperature and humidity are not stable, and these variables cause the strings particularly to expand and contract rapidly, although microscopically, thus losing both tuning and pitch level. 

The device known as a "climate control system" includes both a humidifier that adds moisture and a heater that reduces moisture.  These two mechanisms are regulated by a control system known as a "humidistat" with a control that results in a stability of temperature and humidity to a range of a few degrees constantly — usually about 72 degrees Farenheit an''"d a Relative Humidify RHfactor of about 40 to 45 percent.  Extreme situations can result in breakage of soundboards in dry climates to rusting of strings in chronically wet weather conditions.  The best of the climate control systems is the "Dampp-Chaser" product, which has been marketed for about 60 years with the best of success.  Most RTP technicians include the skill of installing these systems.  The systems are expensive, meaning $500 to $700, but often obviously save the lives to pianos, and therefore are no more expensive than any other kind of insurance that we pay much more for relatively.  These systems virtually never wear out.  Once a technician sees a fine piano that has exploded due to over dry weather conditions, he becomes very enthusiastic about encouraging piano climate control system installations.

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4

Few RPTs have time to cheat their clients.

Choosing an RPT Registered Piano Technician, that is, a fully qualified piano technician for your service work is the quick and easy way to avoid rip-offs resulting in both overcharging for services and/or shoddy workmanship.

Yes, sometimes an RPT charges a lot for his services, but usually it is related to the time it may take to complete the work, as well as time and distance costs related to a particular job.  Remember that first and foremost a piano is a machine, and that it is better to not work on it at all than to have some inferior mechanic either ruin it or not improve it, all in the name of better prices.  The cost of an inferior maintenance scenario can run up to 3 or 4 times higher than qualified maintenance, because of the need to replace fatally damaged parts inflicted by shyster entrepreneurs that convinced you to let them touch your machine.

A piano consists of at least 6000 parts, with large concert grand pianos having up to 12,000 or so parts (depending on how the count is done).  I sold a piano once to a jet engine mechanic, and he was astonished to learn that a piano of any type or size involved many more parts than his jet engines, which run in the 4000-5000 parts range.

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One of the biggest challenges a piano technician has is to be able to determine what an individual piano needs when he walks up to it, and to find a way to somehow explain this to the owner without appearing to be an opportunist and doing and saying strange things in the eyes of an owner, claiming it had to be done or the piano would fail, all just to make a little extra money from a client. 

Most of the RPT Registered Piano Technicians I know about are literally out of breath trying to take care of the impossible job of being everywhere at once and never having enough time to get their work done.  Most piano technicians, if not working a scheduled tuning or regulating job, are studying or teaching or traveling to an educational convention or meeting of some kind — that's a description of an every day seven day week for an average full-time career RPT.  It is a career of devotion and activity level that exceeds most others.

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