Ron Nossaman wrote: > >Hi folks, > >Have a customer with an 1886 Broadwood grand piano. > >It is straight strung with a cast iron plate. Where the tuning pins go thru > >the plate the plate is threaded to accept the threads on the pins. > >My question is what tension level were these pianos originally tuned to? A4 > >= ? hertz. > >The customer wants to go ahead with new tuning pins. Do away with the > >threads in the plate and make it conventially pinned. If this is done can > >this plate take the tension of tuning the piano to A440? > >Thanks. > >Doug Mahard > > > > Hi Doug, > The tension difference between A435, and 440 is about 1000lbs in a modern > grand without changing the string scaling. You'd have to measure the scale > in this one to really find out what you've got to work with. Sure, pianos > can be rescaled to minimize such problems, but that's looking a bit too far > ahead. The first question is why is the work being considered in the first > place? If any modifications are made to "modernize" the instrument, what > does the customer expect to get when it's done? I'd be concerned that he > will expect it to sound like a new, modern piano with just a restringing, > while leaving the look of something old, for the room decor. That's a > guaranteed losing proposition for you, your customer, and the piano. Curious to know your reasoning for this last statement. Richard Brekne I.C.P.T.G. N.P.T.F. Bergen, Norway > Then > there's the "historical artifact" preservation thing to consider, which is a > number one priority for a lot of folks. In any case, I think that before > modifications are made to any customer's piano, both the customer and the > tech should have a pretty clear (and very similar) idea of both the intent, > and the expected results. > > Ron N
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