> >Thanks for the pictures. > >What were these builders trying to do? Were they each single handedly >trying to use up all of the iron in the whole of the Mesabi Range? Maybe they owned stock in a mining company. > >Have you any idea what that plate might weigh? No. Fortunately I wasn't around when they took it out (although I would have liked to see it after the fact). > I've been giving some >thought of late to the amount of iron in even the typical piano plate >(leave off something like this). Much of it is a total waste having no >structural or acoustical function whatsoever.... > >Del One of the interesting things about this plate is that in spite of all the metal they put at the tuning pin end, it's fairly light at the hitch pin end. The struts are heavy, but the plate web in between looks like it might be fairly flexible. For the strings at the midspan between the struts, I would think that there might be a fair bit of deflection at the hitch pin end as they are pulled up to pitch. I haven't really thought about it before, but I wonder if this could be a way to attempt to build in some tuning stability. The humidity increases, the soundboard moves up, the string tension increases, but because the plate or string connection to the plate is fairly flexible, the tension won't increase as much as for a rigid plate or connection. I don't know how flexible things would have to be to make this work (if it would) or how that would affect the tone. Also, if you were counting on plate flexibility for this effect, you wouldn't get any at the plate struts. Too bad we don't know more about what these guys were thinking. Phil Ford
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