Bridging the cap

[Phil Bondi]

Hello all.

I was at a customer's home yesterday who is interested in doing some work
(re-whatever) to her Howard 4'10" Grand.

It needs work. Let's put it this way..the only thing it doesn't need is a
new plate and soundboard (in my opinion).

As I was inspecting it, I noticed very little downbearing on the
tenor/treble bridge. There was better downbearing on the bass bridge.
Sustain at C6 was 7-8 seconds, and I count 1onethousand, 2onethousand, etc.
I thought that was pretty good for a little guy/girl! I couldn't get a good
feel for sustain on the bass bridge, because the wire is approaching the
color black, but I was enthused to find what I would consider good sustain
at C6.

So what's the question?

I have good sustain on the tenor/treble bridge with minimal
downbearing(using a rocker gauge), and there's better downbearing on the
bass bridge, but getting something resembling a tone is somewhat futile.

>From what I said, would this piano benefit from having a new cap applied to
the bridges? My thought is giving the paino as much downbearing as possible
with what appears to be a soundboard that has crown left, with a slight
re-scaling of the bass wire and some fresh felt on the hammer shanks, I
think this piano would be a pretty good one for what it is.

Would re-capping the bridges bring that much better tone and
sustain..and..for what reasons do you all re-cap bridges for in the first
place?

Always a curious roo(k),
Phil