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Hi all,
Next Tuesday evening I will be attending the official launch concert
for the new Stuart 220cm grand piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of
Music. I wouldn't have been invited under normal circumstances (since
our Mr Stuart regards me as "an enthusiast at a very early stage of
developing your ideas and grappling with the logistics of their
implementation" - 11 September 2002 fax), but since this event is a
public concert and I have been invited along by a friend and
colleague, I will be enthusiastically attending.
Below is an image of the man himself regulating one of his new 220 cm
pianos. This image appeared in today's Sydney Morning Herald, but
since the image was removed from the SMH site by this afternoon, I've
scanned a copy for you all to have a sneak preview.
Just in case the above image doesn't make it through the Pianotech
filter, it is also viewable on my website at;
http://overspianos.com.au/st_2.2.jpg
The accompanying text of the SMH article, "Piano patriot strikes a
note above imports" , can be found at;
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/13/1055220770227.html
And now for a few preliminary comments based on my observation of the
image (sorry about the quality of the scanned image, but newsprint
source doesn't help the end result). I haven't seen this piano 'in
the flesh yet', but the image reveals quite a bit about its design,
and we service the Stuart concert piano at Sydney University's Great
Hall. As you would expect, there are many similarities. For all of my
own reservations regarding Wayne's design philosophy, these are very
carefully built pianos. Note the evenly laid spacing of the string
sections. Very nice work.
This model, as with the concert grand, has an eight octave compass
from the F below A1 to the F above C88. Special agraffes can be seen,
fitted under the capo bars - which for all Stuart pianos extend
throughout the entire compass. The key board which Wayne is handling
in the image looks to be well made (it is made in house, like a
majority of the parts in Stuart pianos. The actions however are made
by Tokiwa and are Yamaha copies). The strike scale would appear to be
pretty wide, judging from the heavy splay in the high treble. The
bandsaw work in particular looks to be very good, since the key
widths are nice and even. You can see from the image that the
bass/treble break is at C#17/D18, with seven bi-chord notes on the
lower end of the treble bridge, and no tenor bridge. The first plain
wire is note A25. The bi-chord covers look to be made of the usual
Stuart winding material - stainless steel. The scaling of this
instrument, for a modern 2 metre piano, seems pretty bazaar to me. As
I've mentioned before on this list, there is no way that one can
achieve good scaling uniformity when employing bi-chords for the
lower notes on the long bridge. There must be a reduction in the
speaking length when the scale steps from tri-chord plains to covered
bi-chords. At least Stuart's resisted the temptation to cross onto
tri-chord covers from the plain strung tri-chords, on the long
bridge. I just can't understand why any modern maker would want to
use covered wires on the long bridge. It just doesn't work. I look
forward to a time when it is normal to run a log scale down only
until the useable maximum speaking length is reached for the
particular size of piano. Once that longest practical log length is
reached, the bass section should begin. The temptation to drop in a
Wolfendenesque hockey stick just because we've run out of piano, is
just plain dumb in 2003. Its simple common sense. The piano world is
still rotten with 'hockey stick bridges' (but not the Stuart in this
regard) and covered strings being used in a vain attempt to cover up
huge scaling deficiencies with the said bent bridge. Let's move
forward from 1900 for heavens sake !!!!!!!!! (I digress - I promise
not to do it again tonight).
The bridge agraffes on the later Stuart pianos (from my jaundiced
perspective) are a much improved design when compared to those on his
first instruments. His original agraffes looked as if they were
probably exposing the bridges to dangerous rolling forces, since the
strings were offset upwards from the rear pin (which is held down by
the brass hooks) and upwards over the front pin. Wayne is quite vocal
in his criticism of conventionally pinned bridges. He claims that the
tendency of the conventional pinning to rotate the bridge
horizontally, is a primary cause of poor tone. I very much doubt this
claim, though I have read comments by others on this list, where they
have wondered about the effect of side draft also. Of the Stuart
pianos I have observed with the earlier agraffes, they look to be
candidates for pulling the bridges forward off the sound board
somewhat prematurely (the bridges look to be leaning pretty heavily).
Anyhow, someone in the inner circle must have been feeling the same
way, since the new agraffes offset the strings equally down then up.
The new agraffes have a horizontal front and rear pin, with a third
centre pin which fits under machined brass retainer 'hooks'. There is
very little clearance between the wires and the brass hooks, so I
would expect these agraffes to be quite noisy. Since there are
silicon rubber blocks fitted to the agraffes, pressing up on the wire
segments between the front and rear pins, I think we could safely
speculate that the agraffes were indeed causing string noise.
The height-adjustable vertical hitch pins are of a design that is
more than a little familiar to me, since I remember telling Wayne
about this idea when Geoff Pollard, Wayne and I shared a couple of
drinks at a bar during one of the early Australian technician
conventions. As it happens, I've never actually built any of these
hitch pins. But they are threaded into the plate, with a hexagon key
recess in the top for adjustment. If my memory serves me, I think
Stuart's pins might have a collar around it with a groove for the
wire. This collar idea was not part of my original concept, but it is
probably something that Wayne came up with as a refinement.
Well that's it for observations thus far until I get to see and hear
the real thing. By the way. I've mention before on this list, that I
would really like to see the design of the Sohmer bridge agraffe (I
haven't seen an example to date). A number of you must be digital
imaging savy by now. If any of you have access to a Sohmer and a
digital camera, I would very much like to receive a jpeg. Thanks in
advance.
For those who asked recently, I'll take my camera in to the ABC
tomorrow to photograph the redesigned and de-tuned front duplex
system on the 1962 Steinway D. I'm tuning for a live broadcast so
I'll have plenty of time to get a couple of shots. I'll get them
on-line sometime soon.
Best,
Ron O.
--
OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
Grand Piano Manufacturers
_______________________
Web http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
_______________________
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