Call for scaling spreadsheets

[Farrell]

Certainly different folks will get different mileage from various approaches, but I would respectfully beg to differ with your conclusion: "This is approaching a level of
> design work that is just not practical for a one-off project."

The very first piano I ever restrung, came to me with no strings. I had a string scale developed for me by David Sanderson. The piano was an old Estey microgrand which had plain wire unisons (or at least tri-cords) through to the end of the long bridge. David asked me if I would like to convert some of the presumed plain wire tricords to wound bicords, as that change would improve the scale. I said sure. So we did. I didn't recap - I think I just used the outer bridge pins and left the middle ones unused. I did have to remove/add a couple hitch pins - but even the first time with it, I don't think it took me but 20 minutes or so. And that's all there was to it. IMHO, VERY practical for a one-off project - and in this case, a fairly low-budget affair.

Now if you already have a set of new bass strings, I realize that may affect the practical aspects of converting low tenor plain wires to wound, but then again, I would sure recommend looking at the scaling of those bass strings - sounds like some clown already did some "work" to this piano - I would think a close look at the scaling of the new strings would be in order anyway - you may find that things are in a pretty sorry state with them anyway.

FWIW, I made more money 10 years ago when I was working as a hydrogeologist modeling groundwater contaminant transport. I chose to enter the piano technician profession. I wanted to be creative. I wanted to create beautiful things. I guess that's a large part of why I am generally very open to making changes in piano design if it can make a more beautiful product.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
>I probably would not.  Although, I would analyze the existing scale, with
> the existing replacement strings.  If I felt I could substantially improve
> upon them, I might, but this would probably mean discarding the existing
> bass strings entirely.  If I were in the project to make money, I would go
> with what I had.  If you are in it for your own edification, by all means,
> analyze and modify away.
> 
> It wasn't entirely clear if the original scale included wound strings on
> the treble bridge, only that there was a replacement set of wound strings. 
> To add wound strings where there had previously been plain wire, the treble
> bridge would have to be at least partially recapped and repinned, not to
> mention relocating and adding hitch pins.  This is approaching a level of
> design work that is just not practical for a one-off project.
> 
> Frank Emerson
> pianoguru at earthlink.net
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