Downbearing? Ron O

[Ric Brekne]

Ron O writes:

    Indeed. And for those sections which have a longer backscale, you
    will require a higher downbearing setting to achieve the desired
    angle of downbearing. Furthermore, when the piano is strung, a
    shorter backscale will lose a lot more of its unstrung angle,
    compared to a longer backscale.

Thanks for the reply Ron. If you could explain a bit of what you usually 
do and why concerning how much of the total string angle to place on the 
back length visa vi the front (speaking length) I would be very greatful.

Another little point I havent quite worked out yet is that unless the 
bridge surface actually follows one of the downward angles towards 
either the hitch pin or speaking length.. (ie either angel is 0)  then 
there are actually two deflections towards the string.  Clearly this 
adds a bit more tension for any given deflection then the single point 
deflection I've been using to look at things thus far.  But I am not 
sure how to figure this in.  Depending on how wide the bridge face is I 
was thinking you could maybe figure the triangle created from the points 
the front edge, back edge and hitch pin makes and add this to a single 
deflection figuring using the front edge as the single deflection 
point.  Perhaps this is a clumsy way and might not even work... I am 
unsure about the bridge surface length. It would seem to me that there 
should be an easy way to do this using just the width of the bridge 
surface and the angle the surface takes to the undeflected string 
plain...  If you could enlighten ... ? :)

Cheers and thanks
RicB