<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 18, 2008, at 9:13 PM, <a href="mailto:bdshull@aol.com">bdshull@aol.com</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div>The sostenuto on Steinways was belly mounted through the 1870s.  A rotating mechanism had arms which a cloth-sheathed wire was tautly soldered to.  There was a little pin on the damper lever that the sheathed wire caught.   More of us have seen 19th century Steinway verticals with the same wire.  It's the same wire.</div><div> </div><div>Steinway went to an action mounted system between 1878 and 1880, depending on the model.  Just as Steinway was done with the bellymounted system it started up the Hamburg factory....which kept the bellymounted system. </div><div> </div><div>Bill</div><div> </div><div>Bill Shull, RPT, M.Mus</div></span></blockquote></div><br><div>Thanks for the history fill in, Bill. Wow! such a short period between belly mounted and action mounted! The action mounted design is, indeed, "ancient."</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I found it interesting that the 1875 patent material described the need to have the sostenuto rod raise the damper a little more than the key does. This is necessary with the fixed tab system so that other tabs don't jam against the rod, causing, at the least, a nasty feel. So the pedal play needs to be a bit greater (the rod swings a bit more) and the rod placement a bit higher relative to tabs at rest (it catches the tabs a little later in the keystroke, if you are doing fast pedaling). And up stop adjusted a bit higher to compensate.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I well remember the first time a customer with fixed tabs (M & H BB) asked me to adjust the sostenuto, and how I had to puzzle through the subtleties to get it to work to her satisfaction (she was complaining about the "bump"). Albert Steinway (the inventor of the device) could have clued me in.<br></div><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">Regards,</div><div>Fred Sturm</div><div>University of New Mexico</div><div><a href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</a></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div><br><div></div></body></html>