Interesting dilemna

[Jon Page]

At 09:19 AM 05/16/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Jon,
>Well Ollie, this is certainly a fine kettle of fish. Did you get an RH%
>where the piano was before teardown, when you took the initial bearing
>readings? I'm wondering if the soundboard might have been dryer and lower


The piano resides in a beach front, seasonal restaurant.
No dryness there.


>when you got it than it is now. If so, it'll probably go back to where it
>was when it's strung. How high WERE the nose bolts anyway? It's hard to
>imagine they made that much difference, so I'd tend to think the crown at
>the time of measurement was a major factor. Old soundboards deflect easier
>than new ones. It's really weird to find zero bearing in the high treble
>too. Did you look (feel?) for broken ribs up there? I've seen it, but not
>often. I believe I'd make bearing adjustments based on teardown

In the high treble there is some front bearing but the line is off the surface
in the rear (barely any string impressions in the back half of the bridge 
surface
for the top few).

As I said, bearing was minimal, everywhere. Now it is fine in the bass and
start of the tenor bridge, increasing through the middle and tapering back to
minimal 9if that) front bearing in the last octave.

>measurements as much as what you see now. I'd probably grind down the
>underside of the treble duplex a little to try to get some bearing there,
>shim under the mid tenor duplex a little (not much) to try to split the
>difference between what the high nose bolts produced, and what the current
>position shows you. Any is probably better than none, but a lot may leave
>you with too little bearing after the board is loaded. I'd probably leave
>the bass and low tenor alone and go with what you've got, since the new
>improved nose bolt position ought to help a little.


That's just what I'm already in the process of doing.


>The rub is, it's hard to know what you should have done until you've
>already done it and can more easily see the mistakes. At least that sums up
>my experience with this kind of thing. It's a balancing act, and you can't
>really be too sure how the old board will react, so I don't try for optimal
>bearing configurations in these situations so much as trying to fudge
>things toward "better" without going too far... hopefully. Conservative
>seems to work better for me than does fearless in these situations.

There's the rub, getting it between fudge and factory. I wonder how many
times the phrase is heard on a production line, "This bearing is not working,
let's reset it, strip it back down".

>  Good luck, and report back once in a while so we know you're OK.  <G>
>
>Ron N

Shimming, grinding,

Jon Page,   piano technician
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.
mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net
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