Killer Octave Question

[Farrell]

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First of all:

"Regardless of Terry's bald dome sticking through his topless hat..."

I don't even remotely resemble that! I may be fat, slow, dull, whatever, =
but I'm not bald!

"Last night (25 years later) I pulled it (long bridge) back out of some =
dark corner,=20
and laid it on my granite panel: just as flat as ever. It's been=20
sitting for a day now, balanced at mid-point on a pencil and is still=20
 flat."

I did the same thing to my flat Mason & Hamlin long bridge as Ron =
suggested. I put a small dowel under somewhere near the middle of the =
bridge. I can't balance it though, the midsection of it simply rotates =
up and the two ends remain in contact with the table. How is it yours =
balances when oriented bottom down and a pencil under the middle?

Got a picture?

Terry Farrell
 =20
----- Original Message -----=20
From: "Bill Ballard" <yardbird@vermontel.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: Killer Octave Question


> At 10:04 AM -0500 4/13/03, Ron Nossaman wrote:
> >>Was that a solid bridge root with a ship-lap joint, or vertically =
laminated?
> >>
> >Solid, why?
>=20
> I just wasn't used to hearing that a long bridge of maple was that=20
> floppy, and thought that the difference in stiffness between=20
> vertically laminated and solid might account for your testimony.=20
> Back when I thought I was going to be going deeper into belly work=20
> than just  repair of old boards, I made myself a vertically laminated=20
> long bridge, gluing strips of rotary sawn 1/8" maple veneer (locally=20
> available) next to the long bridge I'd pulled off a dead upright. I=20
> ran both sides across the jointer and practised notching.
>=20
> Last night (25 years later) I pulled it back out of some dark corner,=20
> and laid it on my granite panel: just as flat as ever. It's been=20
> sitting for a day now, balanced at mid-point on a pencil and is still=20
> flat. I can push it flat without too much trouble, but it springs=20
> back flat quite emphatically.
>=20
> >These are new pianos I've tuned for dealers, either on the dealer's=20
> >floor, at sales events, or in customers' homes. These are not=20
> >necessarily pianos with any specific complaint I was called to=20
> >alleviate, though some were. I don't see that it matters a whole lot=20
> >if the soundboard dies in the factory, in the truck on the way to=20
> >the dealer, or in the customer's home between the time of delivery=20
> >and the tuning. This shouldn't be happening at all, in my opinion.
> >
> >>How many were these?
> >
> >Dozens, not hundreds.
>=20
> I'll take your word for it. My condolences to the owners (if they've =
notice).
>=20
> >>And how many new Steinway pianos have you been called in to examine=20
> >>because of perfectly fine tone, in which you found the required=20
> >>crown.
> >>
> >Now that you mention it, I don't recall ever being called in to=20
> >examine a piano because of perfectly fine tone. How many times has=20
> >this happened to you?
>=20
> On the surface this was a joke. (Like the comment from a=20
> Medecin-Sans-Frontier doctor on the other side of the Paki border=20
> from the Afghan civil war fifteen years ago, that none of the land=20
> mine victims making it to his clinic had leg wounds.) The rest of the=20
> paragraph did confirm that you've run into good Steinways as well.
>=20
> >No Bill, it's somewhat more than less than one. How is it that you=20
> >apparently aren't experiencing these problems? Do all (both?) of the=20
> >Steinways you service sound perfect? How many pianos have you=20
> >checked crown and bearing on, and what correlations have you made=20
> >between these measurements and tone production?
>=20
> Truth be told, I don't see that many new Steinways. Saxtons River VT=20
> is a nice town, but it really is out in the pucker-brush, as far as a=20
> constant supply of people ready to purchase a new Steinway. Now that=20
> you mention it, whenever I've sold a big ticket Steinway, it's=20
> generally been from a rebuilder. The Steinways at the dealer just up=20
> the river from me aren't very compelling to me or my customers. I've=20
> always assumed that whatever could be made of these pianos would be=20
> "after-market voicing", but I certainly would have learned a great=20
> deal, as you did, checking bearing at various points on these boards.
>=20
> When I want to see good fresh Steinways, I grab a Sunday in July and=20
> go down to the Marlboro Music Festival. The best most recent Steinway=20
> I've encountered was a Dakota Jackson Design AIII belonging to a=20
> customer. Laying a string on the underside of that board might reveal=20
> what was right where all these others were wrong. It's a very strong=20
> piano (not in the Jesse Ventura sense, but in the aspect of sheer=20
> size of tone which a voicer has to work with.)
>=20
> >Were all those hours of discussion about the drawbacks of=20
> >compression crowning soundboards for nothing? It's essentially a=20
> >design problem. This sort of thing is inherent in the production of=20
> >compression crowned soundboards.
>=20
> Don't mind me. I've just had to run another sacred cow through the=20
> meat grinder. I going to have to turn the bulk of it into patties and=20
> go through it, burger by burger, over the month six months.=20
> Regardless of Terry's bald dome sticking through his topless hat, the=20
> only curvature which the ribs provide is perpendicular to the board=20
> and bridges. Any curvature in the board parallel to the grain and=20
> bridges would seem only to come from a special shaping of the belly=20
> rail and the rasten. That shaping that would seem to be an even=20
> trickier piece of wood-working (its pattern having come from the=20
> intersection of a paper "doughnut, whose hole was shaped more like a=20
> piano rim than a circle).
>=20
> It would seem to me that the ribs, and the crown they provided, would=20
> be all the support for the string load the board would need. Any=20
> crown parallel to the board grain and bridges, with the panel out of=20
> the rim, would seem to be spurious and inconsequential, all the more=20
> so because at the end of the day, crown in that direction has nothing=20
> to do with any belly work, but simply the shape of the rim.
>=20
> But all that having been dispatched, there is a small residual matter=20
> which John Hartman may have been referring to. I've never done any=20
> bellying, but I'd guess that there is nothing about the ribs, once=20
> glued on which would get in the way of bending that spruce panel up=20
> or down, parallel to its grain. (Yes, I know about how much stiffer=20
> any wood is long the grain than across it, and also that the contact=20
> area of the ribs and their glue lines will provide an extra stiffness=20
> which an engineer could measure.)
>=20
> At this point we do have the matter of two springy pieces of wood,=20
> the large (piano-rim shaped) pancake of spruce, and the long stick of=20
> maple. If they aren't mated, then in the gluing process, the one with=20
> the greater spring strength will overcome and deform the other (or=20
> more likely be the less deformed of the two in the laminating). But=20
> then the two of them together will have this resultant shape,=20
> overcome and deformed yet again as clamps and glue fasten them to the=20
> far stiffer rasten.
>=20
> (Jeeze, i forgot and left the meat grinder on all that time.)
>=20
> So apparently it doesn't matter that when a poorly mated bridge=20
> bottom and soundboard top are glued together, the resultant joint=20
> will have an inherent stress. (The stronger of the two springs will=20
> bend the other.) But this is nothing which crowned ribs aren't doing=20
> to the board perpendicular to the grain. And it if did matter,=20
> correcting it would require that extra step of fitting not just the=20
> bridge to the board, but the rasten to the resultant board curvature=20
> around its perimeter. In both cases, not just extra hours, but stock=20
> removal which cut put the rest of the belly process at risk.
>=20
> Let me know if i have to write something on the board 100 times, but=20
> don't ask me to eat more that ten burgers a day. <g>
>=20
> Bill Ballard RPT
> NH Chapter, P.T.G.
>=20
> "Never try to teach a pig to sing.
> It wastes time and annoys the pig."   =20
>      ...........Sign on the wall of a college voice teacher's studio.
> +++++++++++++++++++++
> _______________________________________________
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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