"I am restringing a Steinway M. Before I pulled the strings I read a composite down bearing of 10 to 12 thousandths across the bass and tenor bridges with a dial gauge micrometer. My question is, how much downbearing is too much. Is 10 to 12 thousandths too much. At what point would it be worth pulling the plate to adjust it. The soundboard and bridges are in good condition." Al, I like to see approx. .010" downbearing on the bass bridge; nothing less than .005" on the tenor end of the long bridge, up to the killer oc Greetings, I don't approach this very scientifically, but those number are just guides, to me. If a an old board has positive bearing throughout, I tend to leave the plate where it is. I tend to reduce bass bearing when it seems excessive, and that has often given a lot more fundamental sound in the rest of the piano. I have choked boards' sound out them before,when I added pressure to a 50 year old soundboard. Adding bearing on one section lowers the next, and that the next, etc., pretty soon, we have a perfectly balanced set of numbers, but the board has been stressed so far it doesn't even want to vibrate. Sometimes a new change in an old system is only temporarily what it seems to be. Regards, -- Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090730/be0c5a2b/attachment.htm>
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