Del, At 10:29 PM 9/21/1998 -0700, you wrote: > > >Horace Greeley wrote: > >> . . . . (major snipping taking place) >> >> >> ... the "optimum" piano size landed in the roughly >> 9 foot range. A piano of this size requires a hammer of a certain mass in >> order to be able meet those requirements. A hammer that is too massive >> (and/or, too hard) will overdrive the tone-production/transduction system >> (strings, bridges, soundboard, etc.) of the instrument and produce the >> splatty, attack-heavy, thin kind of non-carrying tone which everyone loves >> to hate. A piano that has insufficient mass (and/or is too hard), will >> produce much the same result, on a smaller, and, therefore, sometimes less >> egregiously annoying level. > >Well, not necessarily. Hammer mass and hammer density are not really the same >thing. Hammers can be large, yet not very dense and/or massive. They can also be >relatively small, yet be very dense and/or massive. As well, simply making a >hammer more massive does not mean that more energy will be imparted into the >string. With all action and hammer combinations there will come a point of energy >transfer saturation. Once this point is reached, adding more mass to the hammer >will not result in more energy being transferred to the string, it will simply >introduce increasing levels of distortion (for lack of a better term). Well, that is the problem with trying to get too much into too small a space, too much has to be cut way too short. In re: parts mass: >This is also quite true. Once again, the little tool I described was used with >new actions, mostly during the years from the 70's through the mid 80's. >Replacing action parts such as hammers, hammershanks and wippens was not an >option. Well, it was, but the only viable replacements at the time were either >identical to those already in the piano or, in the case of the incredibly dense >and massive imported hammers available at the time, far worse. This was/is >presented simply as a method of fairly easily optimizing the geometry of an >existing action, installed in a specific position on a given keyframe and using an >existing set of parts. Our procedure of choice nowadays is to replace the action >components with parts that fit and work. I still use that little devise from time >to time, though not with the regularity that I once did. It is more of a >diagnostic tool now. I like the use of tools like this a good deal. Things like this, along with the "Lowell" gauge, etc., can provide most valuable reductive insight into a given action. Sorry again for the length of the previous post. Best. Horace Horace Greeley, CNA, MCP, RPT Systems Analyst/Engineer Controller's Office Stanford University email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu voice mail: 650.725.9062 fax: 650.725.8014
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