It seems to me that this discussion is missing the intention behind pinned agraffes. If terminating the vibrating string with steel were the intent, wouldn't it be simpler to make the whole thing out of steel? And wouldn't a steel termination defeat the purpose of using brass in agraffes, since brass is "lubricious" in contact with steel strings? I bought a set of pinned agraffes from Renner Stuttgart that I intended to use to replace solid brass ones in a Bosendorfer I was rebuilding. After close inspection of the pinned ones, I decided to re-install the originals. In most of the pinned agraffes I have, the steel pin does not make the termination, but appears to be backing up or reinforcing the relatively soft brass. However, in a number of them, the steel pin has broken through the brass creating some nasty-looking brass burrs that would be sure to buzz on the string. My take is that the pinned agraffes are a good idea that but are too difficult to manufacture with enough consistency. Bob Hohf _____ From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of McCoy, Alan Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 6:15 PM To: CAUTlist Subject: Re: [CAUT] pinned agraffe (was Re: Toughest piece for piano stability?) This piano was difficult to tune everywhere,though less so in the bass. But I think that was due more to the extreme counterbearing angle of the string that occurred throughout the piano. On this piano the tone was rich and full in the mid range and bass as per the usual M&H BB, but it was (and, much to my dismay, still is) thin in the top 1.5 octaves. The only string breakage on this piano was in the lower end of the top capo section (none in the agraffe section). Tuning is easier now that I ground down the plate and decreased the string counterbearing angle, but there is only so much grinding you can do, so it is still not an easy tuning piano anywhere in the scale. Still has that killer BB bass and tenor. Alan From: Don Mannino <dmannino at kawaius.com> Reply-To: CAUTlist <caut at ptg.org> Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:01:03 -0800 To: CAUTlist <caut at ptg.org> Subject: Re: [CAUT] pinned agraffe (was Re: Toughest piece for piano stability?) I never really cared for them - the strings can get more sticky (ping-ping-ping) making tuning more difficult, and the tone was more thin and bright, at least to my ear. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101115/b8a9a651/attachment.htm>
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