[CAUT] Stuart & Son on NPR

Ed Sutton ed440 at mindspring.com
Thu Jan 20 11:35:22 MST 2011


I saw it once, 10 years ago, further than I wanted to travel again. My recollection is that it had a unique, thin, whistling sort of sound, which I grew to dislike very quickly. If someone wants to pay enough, I'll try to find it for further attribution. I believe it was called "Schubert" or "Schumann" on the fallboard.

Ed S.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Delwin D Fandrich 
  To: 'Ed Sutton' ; caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 10:49 AM
  Subject: RE: [CAUT] Stuart & Son on NPR


  Do you attribute the horrible sound to the stamped bridge agraffe? Or to the general design and construction of the piano?

   

  ddf

   

  Delwin D Fandrich

  Piano Design & Fabrication

  620 South Tower Avenue

  Centralia, Washington 98531 USA

  del at fandrichpiano.com

  ddfandrich at gmail.com
  Phone  360.736.7563

   

  From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ed Sutton
  Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 2:51 AM
  To: caut at ptg.org
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Stuart & Son on NPR

   

  Fred-

   

  I've tuned a piano with the pressed metal Avisus agraffe. It was definitely an economy production piano, and sounded horrible, much worse than the average 85 year old piano. The sound was very evenly horrible.

   

  Ed Sutton

   

  ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Fred Sturm 

    To: caut at ptg.org 

    Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:59 PM

    Subject: Re: [CAUT] Stuart & Son on NPR

     

    On Jan 19, 2011, at 7:18 PM, Edward Sambell wrote:





    What of the effect of no downbearing load? And side bearing of the bridge pins exerts a twisting forse on the bridge. Alfred Knight recognized this in his verticals; the bass bridges have the bottom half of the bridge pins leaning at the opposite angle.

    Ted Sambell

     

    Yes, lots of variables, especially with the no downbearing design. The termination and coupling differs in many ways, including no more twisting force as you describe. It is entirely metal rather than wood and metal. Entirely horizontal rather than captured in a acute angle between a metal pin and wood. Coupled between two horizontal fixtures rather than two angled vertical fixtures.  

    The patent Ron posted is quite interesting in that it emphasizes the production value of the invention: a fixture stamped out of sheet metal and bent, with the addition of up to three rods either round or part round. Saves the time and effort of marking out, drilling, notching, installing bridge pins, replacing it with marking and screwing a fixture to the bridge top. Stringing is far easier than with an agraffe that requires threading: just string normally and install the down pressing rod. All in all, a way to make pianos more inexpensively. One of thousands of such ideas, most of which have virtually disappeared.

    Regards,

    Fred Sturm

    fssturm at unm.edu

    "I am only interested in music that is better than it can be played." Schnabel

     
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