Ron Nossaman wrote: > It is my belief that it is wildly unlikely that TP bushings could affect > tone production (all due respect to Bill Garlick). If the string bearing > points and understring felts between the bridge pin and the tuning pin > haven't killed all the string vibrations that would make any audible > difference by the time they got to the TPs, something isn't working right in > the first place. I would assume, rather, that the characteristic sound of a > specific piano is due more to the choice of rim materials and construction, > bracing placement, soundboard and rib configuration, string and duplex > scaling, hammer choice, etc. I don't believe anyone could pick a plate > bushed Steinway or Baldwin from a room full of standard product by sound > alone (except, perhaps by the cleaner tuning <G>). I've said the same about > horizontally laminated bridges for some years too. > > >BTW if I put plate bushings in a Steinway,,, do I still have a Steinway????? > > Theodore Mamel > >RPT > > Pittsburgh > >Chapter > > > > You bet you do! You've got a new, improved Steinway, and everyone else could > too with a little work. JMHO > > Ducking and covering, > Ron Nossaman --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ron, Les, Theodore, et al., I have a hard time getting too worked up over the controversy concerning plate bushings. They were originally invented to be a drilling guide. And once the drill goes through them, they really aren't good for much. After a couple of annual weather cycles the wood has tried so hard to expand between a rock and a hard place (the pin and the plate) that the wood fiber is pretty well crushed. Not to mention the wear and tear from our tuning efforts. I spent about five years tuning almost nothing but Steinways. Without bushings. I could never understand the reported problems folks were having tuning pianos without bushings. If the piano had level pins (in the seventies and eighties none of them came that way, we had to do it during prep), consistent pin torque (ditto), uniform string coils (ditto), etc., tuning stability simply wasn't a problem. I had a whole lot more trouble with Baldwin's and their granite pinblocks -- but that's another story. Or Mason & Hamlin's with their plate bushings. I have long suspected that the fondness many tuners have for tuning Yamaha's, etc., was simply that Yamaha paid much more attention to those details that actually do make tuning easier and more stable. The only plate bushing I've ever seen that might really be effective was the one used by Knight for a while. (I don't know if they are still using it or not. Barrie?) It was phenolic and was hard enough to resist being crushed by the flagpoling tuning pin during tuning. The system I really do like is the exposed pinblock. It is possible to use both a shorter pin and one with a smaller diameter and still not have excessive flagpoling. It's a great system when done correctly. Del
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