Roger, Funny you should mention the experimental SD that was left after Harold was retired. He called it the "Gray" piano. It had a flat steel plate, as you said, with welded struts. The idea behind that was to lend precision to all the plate elevations and thicknesses. With a plate like he envisioned, one could almost set the plate in a case without the need to adjust it's height for downbearing ... almost. I remember hearing it on several occasions played by some formidable artists. Quite a good piano, but unfortunately not significantly better than the existing SD-10. Too bad he never had a chance to develop it fully. It also had a spring mechanism on each key that would eliminate the need to weight keys with lead. Regards, Charles On Sat, 28 Oct 2000 09:43:10 -0600 Roger Jolly <baldyam@sk.sympatico.ca> writes: > Hi Charles, > Thank's for the input, sounds logical. The notes I > had, > asked as many unaswered questions as it did answers. > I recently had the chance to look at one his prototype's (SD12?). > Baldwin > donated it to the Cincinnati Museum of Art. The forward duplexes > were tuned > an octave higher than the speaking length. The trench was clearly > visible, > the resonators were split, and looked to be adjustable. The treble > sounded > cleaner, but lacked the power of a production SD10. > > It had a welded steel plate, and metal action frames. I'm guessing, > but > probably the plate was made this way to save the cost of making a > pattern > for a casting. > I wish there was more time to examine more closely. > > Regards Roger > > > > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
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