? Good Morning All Fellow Belly Heads ? ?It's not often I get to start over & actually design a piano but this was a good candidate & it's been fun. It was also necessary. ?? ?I Love the Non Steinway projects especially the big ones.?I am rebuilding a 6 ft 8 inch Henry F. Miller from the early 1900's.? It's great because it's....big ...Has a horribly designed board & string scale but it is built like a tank. ? This Job has been a bit daunting because of the duplex angles on the pinblock to flange & also the mortised in pinblock.?Dennis & I?had to build it in two sections & then patch up the side of the case where it was cut out. ? ?The String scale was a nightmare?that averaged between 220 & 240 per plain wire string. ?Aggregate plain wire tensions was 38 Thousand?pounds.? Add the bass string tension & it's pushing 50?thousand pounds total tension on the plate.? Un heard of!? Just changing wire size wasn't going to get there. New wire tension was down to 33 thousand. ? This meant making a new bridge. I modeled the new one off a 1894 Steinway B bridge/scale & got the tensions down to 160 to 180. Very Steinwayish & normal. Also the new bridge shape shaved off two plus inches in string length & now lies closer to the center of the rib structure. See bridge laying side by side or over layed. ? I changed rib scales to work nicely with he string scale. 15 ribs fanned & taller of course. The old board probably caved in under the tension of the original scale before it left the factory. View full size ? Below is the redesign & addition of the fish.? I think the bridge on this piano lies closer to the actual center of the ribs than any other I've done. View full size ? Below I laid the old bridge end right on top of the note 88 location & the bottom end on the appropriate note on the low tenor end.? The difference is seen View full size ???? Below shows the new bridge & transition bridge View full size ?Here is a new plate suspension system that Ron N. & David Love shared with me. The miller plate set on a wooden top caul with 17 screws. Duplicating such a thing is joke. SO for about 2 bucks a piece this simple & elegant solution quickly solved my plate elevation issues. Parts are from Mac Master -Carr.? They have everything! I filled int he counter sunk plate screw holes with epoxy & high density filler then re drilled the entire hole a bit bigger for clearance. View full size ? Here is a new device. Below.? I got this idea from David Betts at NBSS. It's high density rubber that is used to glue in the board. No more wood strips lined with plastic to keep things from sticking. It bends with a bit of effort. Very slick. Glued the board in Yesterday. I have always wanted to put a Steinway String scale/bridge in something else & see what I could produce tonally. I guess we'll know soon. View full size ? Dale Erwin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080531/cf25138a/attachment.html
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