Bridge Root Spring-Forward

[Ron Nossaman]

> Oh gosh, where have I heard that very thing....... "Every one of our 
> pianos is unique - every one of our pianos has its own personality"?

Deja Vu all over again. Hey, us little guys can be world class 
too, if we squint at it just right.


> But now I'm curious: I can correct the small deviation in bridge shape 
> with my pinky and just move the tenor tail over to where I want it and 
> screw it to the soundboard - that way my design speaking lengths are 
> maintained. From your description, it appears you are compromising your 
> speaking lengths so that you don't have to induce a little bend in your 
> bridge. I understand that your analysis of the string scale suggest that 
> in the tenor section the small changes in speaking lengths are not 
> critical - but why not just bend the bridge a bit and maintain the 
> design speaking lengths?

Well, that's the thing. According to the scaling spreadsheet, 
a pinky's worth is in the range of system noise. Staking the 
root out in the corrected curve, and epoxying a laminated cap 
to it would likely bring it back into pretty close tolerance 
to design specs and stabilize it there, but in practice - if 
it doesn't walk any different than a duck, and it doesn't 
sound any different than a duck... ??? Duck it! There are more 
important potential disasters to which to attend. (pinky up) 
Mustn't scare the molecules unnecessarily, you know.
Ron N