self tuning piano????

[Bill Ballard]

At 6:24 PM -0700 7/3/02, David Ilvedson wrote:
>When all is said and done and the piano is built, it will be a Story 
>& Clark piano...
>
>David I.

As I was too polite to say earlier, if it's at all as wild in it's 
tuning stability as say (for instance) a GH1, you may want a remote 
for that "TUNE" button, given how often it would need tuning.

I can't see any significant fire or electrical hazard from over 
driving the tuning function. The shifting of the amperage among the 
strings during  seriously out'a'whack tuning would not produce and 
voltage differentials which would invite arcing.

Surplus heat, I wouldn't worry about. Higher temperatures are what's 
called for to drop a sharp string flat, unless the factory had 
recently chauffeured in their Master Tuner to reset the piano's 
master tuning. the general ambient pitch would have slid downwards by 
at least 50¢ within two years, and 100¢ at five.

On second thought, without a mechanical tuning, the thermal tunings 
would have to be based on a higher ambient operating temperature than 
the factory's 95º F. Maybe it's the bumped-up operating temperature 
to compensate for the five years of pitch droop, which is snagging 
the UL-Listing not mentioned in PTJ article. 150º ?!? That's not a 
piano that's a space heater. The wooden soundboard is a fire hazard, 
and please, make the case out of fire retardant plastic.

Del,

If a limber if laid horizontally between two block, can sag of its 
own weight, and tack a re-setting of the fibers therein, in the form 
of that sag, Can wire under tension, but with markedly fluctuating 
temperatures, take a similar "thermo-set"? Will wire experiencing 
such frequent upward jabs in temperature tend to lose more stretch 
and faster than wire, under similar tension however left at ambient 
room temperature?

That's the long term question.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"May you work on interesting pianos."
     ...........Ancient Chinese Proverb
+++++++++++++++++++++