Hi JD: The Delignit bridge capping material is straight from the Schaff catalog. It's densified beech, just like the pinblock material where the densification comes from heat and pressure, but not as hard. Still harder than the maple though. I capped the whole bridge, bass and all of the tenor bridge. This was a cheap no name grand and a one time experiment. It seemed to work fine, but it's just too butt ugly to want to use on a good grand. Sauter is using horizontally laminated ebony in the top treble section. Will Truitt -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of John Delacour Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 5:53 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Bridges and caps [was YC Capo Bars] At 20:27 -0500 19/9/10, Ron Nossaman wrote: >On 9/19/2010 7:48 PM, Roger Gable wrote: >>...Is there a top quality piano using laminated bridges? I think not. > >Not that I know of. There's nothing at all inherently sub standard >about horizontally laminated bridges, except the waste cutting them >out of bigger panels... Hmm. You're all talking exclusively of horizontally laminated bridges I presume and not vertically laminated as used by Steinway? I'd need to have more detailed evidence and analysis than a few expressions of opinion to convince me... ... but with regard to the Delignit bridge-capping material, I'd like to hear a fuller description of this than I see in Schaff's catalogue. Is it of beech? How thick are the laminations? Is the wood impregnated to render it harder? I can imagine that laminated hornbeam might be very effective. The trouble with solid hornbeam, as I know from trying it, is that it has hardly any give and can easily split. I have seen hornbeam capping occasionally in the treble of some pianos, and certain high-class makers used boxwood for the top section, but that is now impossible to obtain at an economic price. When you cap the bridge with the Delignit stuff do you do the whole bridge or just the top section plus? Even the very finest of piano-makers from the good old days seem to have seen no virtue in using the harder bridge top below a certain point in the scale. JD
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