Plate Flexing

[Farrell]

How flat is the plate along the hitch pins? If that is fairly flat, then you 
should simply be able to adjust nose bolts to get the plate where you want 
it in that low tenor area. Is a string stretched across the bass notes a 
similar height above the bass bridge? If there is, is there any problem to 
simply lower nosebolts to position plate properly?

Maybe someone tried to "tighten" the nose bolts in the past?  (i.e.: "what 
are those darn things for anyway?")

Shirley the piano was not manufactured that way!!!!!!!!!!!

Terry Farrell

> While taking off the plate bolts of a Steinway L (c1961) I noticed the
> plate coming up at the tail.  The photo shows a stretched string between
> the agraffe and hitch at note 27 after removal of the bolts--no movement
> in the treble, btw.  Before removing the plate bolts, the bearing
> measured plus 1o at this point.  Total amount of flex in the tail was
> about .75".  Interesting in that the bridge is fairly uniform height and
> the plate is level along the stretcher.  If I were to recap the bridge
> to accommodate the plate in a neutral position, there would be a 14 mm
> difference between the height of the bridge at not 27 and note 88.
>
> While the plate clearly has sat this way for a long time, I'm not real
> crazy about bending it that much again.  Plate flexing on Steinways is
> common but I've always wondered what the upper limit is.  This seems a
> bit excessive.  This piano will not get a new soundboard (unfortunately)
> but that wouldn't really solve the problem anyway.  It seems that the
> plate is warped.  The string height does dip somewhat at the top of the
> treble (typical) and since I'm putting in a new block my thought is to
> raise that side of the plate a bit which would rock the plate down a bit
> in the back (though not much), recap the bridges (all of them will need
> to be done) to allow a lesser amount of flexing at the tail.
>
> Any other suggestions or comments would be welcome.
>
> David Love