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Steingraber did a concert grand with custom bridge agraffes for a
customer. Because of the mass and height change they had to
do some board / bridge re-design, as I recall. There's and Italian
guy doing something like this too, not Fazioli. It is an
interesting idea that really isn't a simple add-on. It will take a
different approach to board and bridge design and will probably make
replacing trichord bass strings very interesting for us. :-)<br><br>
Andrew Anderson<br><br>
At 02:45 PM 4/16/2007, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="Garamond">Hey,
all,<br><br>
I have been following this thread with a fair amount of interest, so now
I think I’ll be a little inflammatory :-)<br><br>
There are obviously many factors that enter into the single string beat
phenomenon, but I want to talk about one: the quality and solidity of the
string/bridge connection. It seems to me that discussing how to
improve the string/bridge pin/bridge connection, is rather like
discussing how to use grandpa’s whittlin’ knife to make action parts just
like Renner’s. I wonder if we haven’t taken this technology as far
as it can go, if we might not need to be on another track
entirely.<br><br>
A few years ago I met an Australian pianist who told me about a piano he
played back home, a Stuart & Sons. Wayne Stuart uses a device
he calls a “bridge agraffe”. It’s a piece that sits directly on the
bridge top, and the string is deflected downward as it passes through,
rather than sideways as with pins. There are no pins driven into
the bridge. See a picture here:
<a href="http://www.stuartandsons.com/sound.html">
http://www.stuartandsons.com/sound.html</a><br><br>
I talked to Ron Overs about this last summer at Rochester. He
seemed to think it was a good idea. He also told me it is not
patented, and in fact Sohmer used these devices many years ago. I
suppose it didn’t catch on then because other manufacturers saw it as
“their” idea, not “ours”. With modern manufacturing techniques,
surely they would be less expensive than the labor-intensive process of
drilling, notching, and pinning a bridge, and would seem to offer a
better termination as well. I have talked to a couple of people who
have played a Stuart, and they both were very impressed with the clarity
and sustain.<br><br>
This looks like the kind of innovation we, as technicians and especially
as rebuilders, ought to be promoting. Also it looks like a good
opportunity for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit. Does anyone
have any experience with these agraffes? Is there a downside to
them that I don’t know about, other than inertia in ideas of how a piano
is supposed to look? They are certainly a fascinating idea, to me,
anyway.<br><br>
Regards,<br>
Ken Z.<br>
-- <br>
Ken Zahringer, RPT<br>
University of Missouri<br>
School of Music</font></blockquote></body>
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