Broadwood Barless Grand

[Gevaert Pierre]

Hi Greg Newell, Del Fandrich,

Just wanted to mention that the two Broadwood barless grands I service are
realy sounding verry nice (all parts are original) and they hold tune pretty
well.

Pierre Gevaert
Belgium

----- Original Message -----
From: "Delwin D Fandrich" <pianobuilders@olynet.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: Broadwood Barless Grand


>
> ----- 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
>