Agraffes in uprights

[Paul McCloud]

Hi, Frank:
    I can understand why the marketing people want them.  It's very impressive to see the strings lined up like soldiers.  We used to sell Rieger-Kloss pianos (spin-off from Petrof) before they disappeared or got gobbled up by someone else.  They had a lot of false beats in the treble section, but whether it was the agraffes I don't know.  The Pramberger (Young Chang) uprights had a "half-agraffe" in the bass, in that the top half of the agraffe was cut off.  It could be this way, obviously, since the wire didn't need the top half.  I liked those models.  I always thought it would cost more to include all those agraffes than doing it the old way with pressure bars and pins.  I'm sure you know more the advantages of all those agraffes than I do.  
One thing I didn't like is that some of the Rieger-Kloss piano models was that the agraffe made it possible for the tuning pins to be offset from the string line, so there was an angle to the tuning pin from the agraffe.  Maybe it doesn't make a hill of beans, but it didn't seem right.  On the other hand, it did make it possible for the tuning pins to not be as crowded and preventing adjacent strings from rubbing on the tuning pin.
I seem to remember that Bechstein grands had agraffes all the way to the top.  There was some discussion here about them, and the need for mass in the capo area that the agraffes couldn't supply.  
Something in my mind says, "If it ain't broke...".  

Paul McCloud, RPT
San Diego
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Frank Emerson 
  To: Pianotech List 
  Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 6:01 AM
  Subject: Agraffes in uprights


  Hi List,

  Recently, I have been getting more pressure from the marketing folks to design upright models with agraffes, preferably all the way up to #88.  What do  you folks think about that?

  Frank Emerson
  pianoguru at earthlink.net
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