Broadwood Barless Grand

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Newell" <gnewell@ameritech.net>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: October 13, 2002 6:08 AM
Subject: Re: Broadwood Barless Grand


> Del,
>          Did you have a chance to rebuild this? What was the scaling like?
> Did you lay it? How would you rate the sound? Seems that a lot of problems
> with scaling could be eliminated with this plate design. Any other details
> you'd like to share?
>
> Greg Newell
>

No, I did not rebuild it. I saw it in a dealer's showroom. The salesman is
the one holding the lid up.

It was an interesting piano--obviously--though not one of particularly
outstanding performance. It sounded about like one would expect from a
mediocre rebuild on a mediocre design of modest build quality using a
mediocre scale and a shot soundboard. I don't know what the string scale
numbers were like--with Broadwood it could be anywhere. Probably it was a
relatively low tension string scale overall but I don't know that for sure.

While I am intrigued aesthetically with this design concept I fail to see
its value from either a practical or an acoustic standpoint. At least not in
this purest form. My impression was that the piano--i.e., the plate--was
considerably heavier and the whole thing was wider than it needed to be to
accommodate the pure 'barless' design feature. (Consider the abnormally wide
plate sections between the bass tuning pin field and the rim and the treble
tuning pin field and the rim.)

If a bass overstrung configuration is going to be used why not incorporate a
plate overbar between the bass/tenor section just to the right of the bass
strings? This bar would take up no space on the scalestick--the scale break
is there anyway--and it would alleviate much of the torsional strain on the
plate and allow a somewhat lighter plate structure. As well, since the
designer has already incorporated a gap in the scalestick for an action
bracket why not insert one plate bar in the tenor/treble section. It doesn't
seem to me it would have upset this particular scale all that much. We're
now back to a conventional three-section plate design, of course.

Were I doing a design of this type (and size) I would extend the bass
section some--a 23-note bass section is far from optimum in a piano of this
size--and incorporate one bar at the bass/tenor break. With this change the
tenor/treble section would be shorter and it should be fairly easy to gain
enough action rail stiffness to leave out the tenor/treble bracket and
design a clean tenor/treble bridge sweep. It is arguable that any acoustical
gains would be obtained by this but there might be some weight and width
savings to be had. And both of these are admirable--though currently
ignored--goals in piano design.

As may be, lacking any compelling acoustical necessity for, or benefit
gained from, the truly 'barless' concept, I'm not surprised it didn't
survive the test of the marketplace.

Del