[CAUT] Steinway D

[David Love]

Well, when you consider laying out new rib arrays, making new bridges plus
transitions, drilling for vertical hitches, adding bass floats, cut off
bars, belly bracing, establishing new counterbearing angles, hand polishing
new agraffes (still don't do that actually), then grinding down a strut and
adding a rod seems like a throw away in terms of added time.  If I knew of
some way to establish whether that's a problem or not I would not hesitate
as I think it may very well have as much importance as any of those other
features.  There seems to be enough people who have thought about it or who
are commenting on it that I am suspicious.  But since don't make it worse is
still my mantra I would be interested to know how those who do think about
these things assess it and make a decision about whether to address it or
not.  Also, how hard is too hard?  Does this 7'Baldwin that I work on that
seems to break strings all too frequently under the heavy handed pianist who
plays it have a capo that is too hard perhaps? 

On a slightly related matter I've always like the Boesendorfer termination
system at the capo.  A massive strut with relatively short counterbearing
lengths that seems to never have problems with leakage, falseness or other
tonal anomalies.  What is the hardness of that contact point, if anybody
knows?  I have no doubt that mass and counterbearing length are important
factors there as well.  It reminds me of a story that the late Sheldon Smith
told me some years ago about Neil Young's piano that he worked on.  It was a
Steinway B and he claimed to have done a retrofit on the capo bar adding a
couple of massive metal bars to the sides of the struts to increase mass.
He claimed it really boosted the sustain and clarity in that section.
Perhaps somebody on list works on that piano located somewhere in the San
Francisco Bay Area and can comment.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ron
Nossaman
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2011 11:33 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Steinway D

On 1/22/2011 11:56 AM, David Love wrote:
> Maybe.  But I've jumped through all the hoops before and still felt that
> something was just slightly not as good as it could be in that section.

Well, yea. If I had an unlimited budget and all the time there is, I'd 
never produce anything perfect. And what I liked more yesterday, I'd 
like less today. We're already pretty deeply into subjective fog with 
some of this stuff.


> Couldn't say for sure that it was the capo but have wondered.

That's it - wondered.


>Seems a shame
> to go through all that board and plate stuff stopping just short, if
that's
> what it is.

I think it would be interesting to play with, and potentially quite 
educational.


>So what hardness and finish would you use.  I found this on
> line http://www.precisionkidd.com/pdf/DrillRodData.pdf. What is the
diameter
> of #40?

I'd thought just regular old water hard drill rod, and #40 is 0.098" 
(2.49mm). It's soft enough to work easily, but seems hard enough to do 
the job. I looked it up just now, and got a Rockwell C hardness of 23, 
which is less than I presumed. I'm starting to like Serge's beryllium 
copper more all the time.
Ron N