plate reaction was Re: Pitch Raising to A440.......Or Not?

[Carl Meyer]

Roger, You've given me the perfect place to comment on the Wapin situation.

When I first heard about Wapin, my first reaction was. $325 to teach me how
to drill a straight hole?  And I have to agree not to tell anybody else?  I
remember Baldwin (a privately owned company) offering to let techs use their
two patents (plate mounting and accujust hitch pins) for free.  Now here is
the U of Cincinnati ( a publicly funded organization) wanting to profit on a
patent.

Here's where the plot thins.  The patent office no longer enforces many of
the requirements for getting a patent.  More money in the coffers of the
department and business being thrown to their buddies, the lawyers.  It
takes a lot of money to overturn or defend a patent.  For a patent that has
limited application that in itself is prohibitive.

The data in the Wapin web sight is not in the same form as the data taken by
Wienrick in the Scientific American.

I attended the minitechnical at Reno given by Wapin.  My motive to attend
was to verify that in fact they wanted that fee and to glean some more
technical information.  Yes they wanted the fee and no I didn't get any
useful information.

I was one of three attendees and I think at least one other was one of their
guys.  In contrast, the verituner class was overflowing.

The main thrust of this class was:  The University of Cincinnati has a
strong legal staff and the University derives much of it's income by
liscening patents that it owns.  This appeared to be a source of pride.

There is a three pin version of Wapin and also a two pin version.
Supposedly, you can Wapinize just the killer octave to improve the sustain
so the soundboard need not be replaced.

I'm not saying it doesn't work.  Most of the worlds problems are not
technological, they are social, political and economic.

So now you know why I keep kicking my feeble brain around trying to think of
a way to do it even better but in a different way.  Even if I could, I'd
have a hard time proving it, patenting it, defending it and selling it.  Oh,
Well!

Sorry for the rant


Carl Meyer  Assoc. PTG
Santa Clara, California


----- Original Message -----
From: "jolly roger" <baldyam@sk.sympatico.ca>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: plate reaction was Re: Pitch Raising to A440.......Or Not?


> Hi Jim,
>             What set me thinking is this direction, The Wapin Bridge seems
> to work very well to my ears. (I have only seen about 6 of them.)    But
> this could suggest there is more movement taking place on the top of the
> bridge cap, through playing,  than we think.  Controlling the transverse
> mode certainly seems to increase the sustain.
> How much deformation of the string at the pin, needs to take place to
> inhibit rendering?    More questions than answers as usual.
>
> Roger
>
>
>
> At 07:05 PM 8/20/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >In a message dated 20/08/01 10:51:29 AM, baldyam@sk.sympatico.ca writes:
> >
> ><< So another question. As the string takes on a set, (bend around the
pins).
> > Is the tansverse and longditudinal modes of the strings changing, due to
> >the bends?  Thereby helping string rendering.>>
> >
> >Roger it seems to me that a "set" in the string would make rendering more
> >difficult rather than less. As for "modes...... changing" I would think,,
on
> >first thought, that only so far as any leakage past the pin would there
be
> >any...?
> >Jim Bryant (FL)
> >
>