hearts on fire

[Carl Meyer]

Got one too.  Mine is a 1923 Cupid.  I thought it was about 5' 6" but I
didn't measure close.

I bought it because I was fascinated by the agraffes on the bridge and I got
it for$450.
I'm using it to train a newcomer letting him do a lot of the work.   It was
a very bright sounding piano  and I thought it was just hard hammers.  After
measuring the scale and unstringing I plotted the scale and found to my
surprise that it had the worse scale I think I've seen.  Note one had a
tension of less than 200 lbs and the last unichord (note 12) had a tension
of over 300.  As is usual at the bass break the treble dropped very low in
tension and the inharmonicy went way up.  Note 88 was running at 83% of the
breaking point.  That's when I slapped my forehead and realized that the
breaking percentage doesn't change with wire size.  Then I found that the
speaking length for note 88 was 58 mm.  I hadn't realized the only way to
reduce the  breaking percentage was to shorten the speaking length.  It's
going to stay that way cause I'm not going to change the bridge.

The total tension was over 43000 pounds.  Hammers didn't feel that hard and
were in decent shape needing filing.

As is my custom, I rescaled with pscale.  Changed 6 notes above the break to
bichord wound, and smoothed out the curves.  This brought the total down to
about 39000 pounds.  I had to enlarge the two outside holes in the bridge
agaffe a bit to get the wound strings through.  The threaded portion of the
agraffes was about 1 1/4 " long going through the bridge, soundboard and
into a 1/4 inch strip of wood under the bridge.  Had coarse threads.

I'm pleased with the sound of the unichords.  Less so with the bichords.
Yet I have not set hammer registration, leveled the strings or made any
attempt at voicing.  I'm hoping that will make a big difference.

JDGrandt made the strings.  Seemed like he followed my instructions very
well.

Ed, if you like, I can mail you all the data printouts (runs about 12-15
pages) with the graphs.  You could compare the measurements with yours and
that should give you an idea of what your dealing with.  I'd be happy to
help you with the scaling.  E-mail me your USMule address if you'd like me
to send these sheets.  I have the graphs on my desk top so I could easily
attach them to an e-mail but they are large for a slow system.

Carl Meyer Ptg assoc
Santa Clara, Ca.








----- Original Message ----- 
From: <A440A@aol.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 7:38 PM
Subject: hearts on fire


> Greetings,
>    Maybe it was Valentines, maybe it was a fever, but in any event, I am
now
> the owner of a Sohmer grand piano.  It is the "Cupid Model".  Yep, the
name is
> cast right there in the plate.
>    Made in 1927, it has a slightly art deco case, perfect ivory, had has
> never been played.  I have a buyer at 5 times my purchase price, so will
be
> restringing and probably putting in a block.  Nice looking board and good
sound.
> However......
>     This piano has agraffes on most of the treble bridge, set in a cut-out
> notch in the front half of the bridge, which allows the strings to pass
through
> the agraffe and also bear on the bridge itself.  Duh,  I have never seen
> anything like this, but I bet someone on the list has. If so,  is there
anything in
> particular that I should know or is it as straightforward as it looks?
> Thanks,
>
> Ed Foote RPT
> http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
> www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives