Jim Bryant wrote: > 1. Have you Called Mapes or Schaff? It is possible that they 'might' have > the scale for at least the bass strings. Haven't yet. I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) that the bass scaling was not modified. > 2. Is the Knabe a 85 note or 88 note instrument? 88. > possibly there were originally wound strings past the break. Thought of that. The arrangement of the hitch pins seems to rule out this possibility. Vince Mrykalo wrote: > Have you looked in John Travis' book "A Guide To Restringing" for > your Knabe scale? Yes, but I didn't really find anything similar. BTW, thanks for the tip about Dave Roberts' book, I'm going to see about ordering a copy. Mark Dierauf wrote: > If the bridge or agraffe line curves back toward the strike-point, then the > tensions will fall and the inharmonicities will rise - and using wound strings > is the only way to manipulate both these properties independently to best > blend in with the strings above and below this section. The foreshortening is not really that bad...it *is* a 7-1/2 foot piano, after all. > >> since using a set tension of 160-180 lbs. gives undesirable results. > > I'm not sure what you mean by 'undesirable results', but if you mean tonal > quality, tunability, and pitch stability, then you need to be looking at more ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > than just the tension. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Exactly. I want to know what to look at, i.e. how to calculate the best wire size here. You are obviously a proponent of rescaling this area with wound strings. And you make a good point. However, I am more interested in coming up with a reasonably good approximation of what was there originally (and I firmly believe they were not wound strings). There are prime examples of pianos in this size range that use 68 plain wire unisons (Steinway B & D, to name two), and I can't believe they do it that way just because they don't know any better. :-) To all--this is helpful and interesting, and I thank you for your input. -- Tom Rush tarush@chatt.mindspring.com
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