Lowell Gauge...was Down Bearing

[Bill Ballard]

At 9:27 AM -0500 2/24/04, John Hartman wrote:
>In the type of pianos I work on I have never sean a situation where 
>a slight tilt to the bridge was found to be the source of a tonal 
>problem. It may be a symptom but not the cause. I guess somewhere 
>there are pianos with serious bridge role, but expect that by the 
>time this develops many other things have gone wrong as well.

With all due respect, John I think this discussion needs a better 
answer than that. But with the great admiration and respect I have 
for you, I'll also say that from your perspective as a rebuilder, 
that this perspective may not provide the answers. The occasion for 
concerning ourselves with the three inclinations and in particular, 
how the middle one (the bridgetop) may relate to the outside two is 
primarily one older pianos of fading resonance. A rebuilder, 
especially one who's new soundboard installation greatly outnumbers 
his old soundboard repair, would only be looking at the existing 
board in an old piano to answer answer the question: pop the old 
board out and replace it, or leave it in and repair it.

Given that once a rebuilder's board installation are up and running 
(after the learning curve has flattened to the point of allowing 
cruising speed), the clear lesson is that it takes far less time to 
start from new, rather than work with the old. For that reason, your 
position that reading the three inclinations adds nothing to the 
decision to replace/repair quite likely already made on the basis of 
gross downbearing, is understandable and quite reasonable. For you.

However, David Skolnik and Ed Foote (and others for whom it's 
important what the three inclinations can tell about an old board) 
are in a different business. Of course, they (oh what the heck, I'll 
include myself and say "we") are just as concerned with whether the 
old board is going to be the limiting factor in the ultimate 
resonance of the piano, as any soundboard installer. And we are 
capable of judging whether the limiting factor is action regulation, 
a good voicing, maybe a restringing, maybe reinforcing bridgepin 
holes and re-notchng during that restringing, or in fact, A NEW 
BOARD. However we're a lot further from the "tipping point" of 
replacing The board than a board installer is, and not just because 
while we might replace a block and recap a bridge, a new board is 
something we send out. (That's the matter of convenience.)

The other reason is that the scope of a circumstance in which the 
"soundboard question" comes up is usually far narrower, than the 
circumstance in which you may be examining a piano for an estimate. 
For us, it may be during the first tuning before the owner has 
thought to ask us why they have to push so hard in the melody range 
of the piano, why the top notes in the bass section are so much 
louder than their neighbors to the north. We'd be thinking that to 
ourselves as part of our internal monolog, "how can this piano be 
more musical". But all this is long before we and the owner are 
sitting around the dining room table, adding up the cost of cartage, 
hammershanks and the wisdom of partial solutions which won't last as 
long as comprehensive "from-new" ones. At this point the owner may 
not even know what an action regulation is (or what it costs in 
relation to a tuning), and we're already thinking: "I bet those wheat 
cracks at the bridge pins in the 5th octave are responsible for the 
balance problems, and although a simple crown and bearing checks read 
sufficient, I'm going to lay the Lowell on it to find if 
epoxy-reinforcing bridgepins will work, or whether what we're dealing 
with negative bearing, not between the to the hitchpin/rearduplex, 
but between the aggr/capo to the rear bridge pin".

Yep, it's a different business, and if you were in it, you'd probably 
be interested in the three inclination too. This said, let me 
reaffirm my respect for you and work work.

At 9:27 AM -0500 2/24/04, John Hartman wrote:
>Didn't the photos show it all?

BTW, what they don't show, and what you didn't specify is where along 
the speaking length your bearing bars are place. In the photos, 
they're placed such that the far end is directly above the duplexes 
which is where you want to read your overall bearing. It bothers me a 
little that this may make the distance between the far en of the 
front flat and the bridge pin, vary.  I'm sure that this isn't a 
problem in your shop, given the small number of scales you work on.

However I view your bearing check bears as a variation on the simple 
three-point rocker gage, with the only differences being 1.)that the 
first and the middle points are the long flat front portion, 2.) that 
while you use it only to measure gaps at the rear end (*) as Baldwin 
does  with the Accu-Just system (* go ahead, RicB, I dare you), and 
3.) you're placing the middle point in the speaking length with the 
front point, instead of on the bridge. But while you might not be 
rocking it to get your reading, it's still a rocker gage. As a rocker 
gage, it's accuracy depends on how from the beginning of the back 
string length the third point hits. Further away, the greater the 
reading of the same deflection, and conversely.

Once again, I'm sure it's not a problem in your practise, but for 
this peer review group a clarification would be useful.

Finally, I'd like to say that I'm not happy with Tom Lowell's 
attention to the market for his downbearing gage, which I believe is 
the best reader of what's happened to downbearing and the bridge over 
the decades. In fact, some enterprising supply house could look at 
his patent to see just how secure it is. I gather that Baldwin's 
"prior art" is overwhelming in this little device, and the only 
reason he was able to patent and market it was because they chose to 
overlook his enterprise. I'd suggest that in light of his neglect 
(when's the last time a supply house told you when the item was going 
to be back "in stock"), someone else could easily step in, hopefully 
with Baldwin's blessings.

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

"I gotta go ta woik...."
     ...........Ian Shoales, Duck's Breath Mystery Theater
+++++++++++++++++++++