Hi Terry, >Well, you blew it. Now you are in the middle of it AND ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL! Ack! I innocently wandered between two battling elk and tried to have an intelligent exchange with one of them. How stupid is that?! I blame the virus. Yes, that's right. The virus. (really) It congested internet traffic enough that much of my email was delayed (arriving quite out of order), and made less sense. <groan> > I'm having a hard time following your paper clip experiment. Where and how is the paper clip supported/immobilized? Is the clip straightened out and supported at the two ends and depressed in the middle? Where is the leaf spring situated, etc. Please clarify. It doesn't matter. A spring is a spring. Supported on two ends or supported only on one end (either one or both), it's the same experiment. The point is that when the leaf spring is added to the mix, BOTH must now be displaced with the finger in combination. Other matters... I was kinda hoping you would hop on board as someone who wants to develop the carbon fiber soundboard! ;-) Hey, there are always ways nature can be improved. Consider the carbon fiber tree in Florida -- able to withstand any hurricane. Also greater compliance to higher frequencies and lower inertia would mean that the tree would be less susceptible to damage when whacked by flying limbs from conventional trees and bits and pieces of your houses down there. Definitely a useful evolutionary advancement! Seriously, take a look at the rainsong.com website and read their blurb about the sound of their carbon fiber boards. It looks like carbon fiber behaves a lot like steel (e.g. the 5 lectures, where you can listen to a sound file of a steel piano). I checked with the stringed instrument manufacturer, and they only do cellos and double basses. They're still trying to figure out the violin and viola. A guitar is intermediate in size and pitch and apparently sounds very "different" from a wooden one. (There's more tolerance for that in the guitar world, I suspect.) The common thread is that they're all having trouble with too much responsiveness on the high frequency end, such that their instruments do not resemble the wooden ones. (They respond TOO well.) It's difficult to make something more responsive, but making it less responsive (e.g. with damping characteristics) is easy. Fine tuning the inefficiencies may take a bit more work, but it can be done. Might you consider trying this? Florida's a bit out of the way for me, but I think I'd enjoy collaborating on a carbon fiber soundboard with someone. You're intellectually curious and industrious, and you're moving into new areas of practice. I'm hungry (figuratively), I know acoustics, and I could use some new avenues for income besides the stock market <groan>. I've thought about how to replicate the treble inefficiencies, and I have an idea or two. This could work. Also, consider your market. You Floridians live in steam. Wouldn't it be great to have a soundboard that doesn't "care" about the humidity? Think of pianos by the poolside. Think of cruise ships! ;-) Consider the larger commercial potential. A means for replicating wood's high frequency loss would certaintly be worthy of a patent, and the idea could be sold to the manufacturers. We could kill the killer octave! ;-) Seriously, would you be interested in such a thing???? Peace, Sarah
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