Sohmer

[Calin Tantareanu]

Hello Carl!

Do you have any pictures of your Sohmer piano? I would really like to see
it.
And would also be interested in the scaling data you measured, to compare it
with other pianos (I'm trying to do a scale analysis of several pianos).

Best regards,


 Calin Tantareanu
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 e-mail: dnu@fx.ro
 http://calintantareanu.tripod.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Meyer" <cmpiano@comcast.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 3:05 AM
Subject: Re: hearts on fire


>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>