Chaging upright bridge location & affects

[Erwinspiano@aol.com]

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   List
    I wanted to pick your brains so here it is. 
    Last week I took in a large 54' 1903 Schaff Bros. upright for 
restoration. It has a beautiful Victorian style case an intact & legitimate soundboard. 
Among the usual things it will also get a complete set of bridge caps. The bass 
bridge has the half moon shaped bridge mounted on the usual apron & the 
bridge body itself has a vertical crack thru to the apron that was repaired by 
installing several screws. 
    Since I need to do extensive repairs anyway I'm considering building a 
solid bridge & attaching it to the board where the apron is currently joined. 
The current string lengths on note 1 is a very long 51& 1/2 "& note 28 is 41 & 
1/2". If I relocate the bridge It will be shortening those strings by 2&1/2" on 
note 1. & 3 & 1/2" on note 28. The new length will be  49'& 38 & 1/2" 
respectively. Still long strings.  Because of the half moon shape the longer strings 
will become even sorter especially if I use a straight bridge which, would be 
simpler. The middle& longer strings would be shorten by as much as 5."
   I'm looking for feedback from others who have done this or have an idea 
about it. A prime consideration for me is, will this improve or inhibit damping? 
How will it improve the sound? From what others have said just attaching it 
to directly to the board will improve mechanical efficiency. No argument there,
    In most uprights the dampers best location would be where the hammers hit 
the strings but obviously they can't be there. Also I don't want to end up 
with the damper on some nodal point that creates some harmonic that I can't 
resolve. In fact perhaps this is why the strings on most uprights are so long 
perhaps to mitigate that effect. I don't know. Will shortening the string push the 
optimal damping point even further up the string towards the tuning pins? 
That to me would be bad.
  Interestingly and for sake of comparison a Mason A Bass note 1 & 26 is 
approx. 49" & 36" Which is close to where a modified length will be on the 
upright. Also the tenor string lengths are fairly comparable in both pianos.
    Any insights will be of course be appreciated & as always stimulating & 
helpful.
   Thanks in advance--Dale Erwin

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