1960's M&H BB String Angles

[Alan McCoy]

Hey Ed,

That was me. And lo and behold I will have the BB in my shop this summer and
I will be addressing this issue among others. Thanks for your suggestion.

Alan

--Alan McCoy, RPT
Inland Northwest Chapter
Spokane, WA
ahm at webband.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of ed440 at mindspring.com
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 4:52 PM
To: Pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: 1960's M&H BB String Angles

Not long ago I believe someone posted to this list recently about the
possibility of improving the extreme downward angle of the front string
segments of a 1960's vintage Mason and Hamli BB.

I regularly tune such an instrument and am aware of the problems induced by
the extreme design that was imposed on these instruments.  The piano I tune
needs to be rebuilt, and every time I tune it I wonder if it could be
improved.  

Today I realized that the tilt of the tuning pins in this piano is extreme,
the added bearing bars are high, and the under string felt is thick.  If the
pinblock was drilled for vertical pins, it should be possible to reconfigure
the plate to allow for the strings to pass to the capo bar with shallower
angles.

I hope the person who asked about this reads this e-mail.  Take a look and
see if you agree this might make rebuilding possible.

Ed Sutton