No killer octave here

[Greg Newell]

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Alan,
         In my view the only thing that you can assure with this pressure 
bar is string termination. At some point , though, you will simply crush 
the string into the bridge body and wind up with poor termination. I still 
don't understand what this has to do with downbearing unless you are 
somehow adjusting the height of the strings with this bar, although I don't 
see how. Is the bridge body somehow height adjustable? The second point you 
have is about a soundboard being able to be made perfectly flat as long as 
sufficient downbearing exists. The two are interrelated and depend upon 
each other for good piano tone. If you had a piano with poor downbearing 
but plenty of crown the tone would suffer. In like manner if you had a 
piano with plenty of downbearing but poor crown you would, again, have poor 
tone. Please rethink what was supposed to be the benefit here and if 
possible could you provide a clearer, larger picture?

Best,
Greg Newell



At 07:23 PM 4/12/2003, you wrote:

>I found this system in an upright piano that came into my possession to be
>scrapped after being involved in an accident. I will withhold the name of
>the piano for the moment and keep you guessing except that it's infamous.
>The piano was designed not to have bridge pins at all but instead a pressure
>bar all the way along the bridge to "clamp" the strings to the bridge. The
>theory behind it I suppose was that there would always be permanent and
>consistent downbearing of the strings on the bridge no matter what the
>soundboard was doing. There would also be no need to build a soundboard with
>a crown; it could be made perfectly flat.
>
>Regards
>Alan Forsyth
>Edinburgh
>"I spent the first part of my life trying to get the things I wanted, now I
>am spending the rest just trying to keep them!"
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives

Greg Newell
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net 

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