All, Before I saw Del's and Ron's work I usually took the "easy road" (my words, no offense meant!) but then I saw how relatively simple it was to do the following, and my pianos we're greatly improved. 1. A simple rescaling almost always helps any piano, and I always do it now. After a few it is not hard at all. Work with someone at first, or take a class. 2. Changing the bass bridge to make it "right" or better; better backscale, eliminate or reduce cantilever, place the bridge in a better spot, only takes a few hours more, but the bass comes alive! Well worth the effort, and again, not difficult after a couple. Del and Ron have posted pictures and details many times. 3. Transition bridge nearly always helps the scale. Again, not rocket science, but you'll need to do your homework. My reason for posting this is that I think a lot of techs are simply afraid of doing it! When you look at (hear) the difference it really is worth it and I'd encourage anyone with some woodworking skills to consider at least these 3 changes. When I restring I always see if this can be done, and if at all possible do it. There are some more things to be done, for sure, but these have been easy (relatively) to do and worthwhile. Granted, I don't have the skills (yet, and probably never due to time) to do much soundboard/bridge design, but IMO if you want to make a nice change at least consider these 3 things while you've "got the hood up". For the complete system I'd always happily recommend someone like Ron or Del to jump in and take the job. Jim Busby From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Terry Farrell Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 6:22 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Scaling Well said Del.... Terry Farrell On Jul 30, 2009, at 5:04 PM, Delwin D Fandrich wrote: And when it is all back together and you find the same tone problems and voicing problems the piano had originally--the unevenness, the poor bass/tenor break, the muddy bass, etc.--you'll understand why some of us rescale every piano we rebuild. Whether we can clearly see the original scale or not. ddf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090731/4c1cb43d/attachment-0001.htm>
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