[pianotech] Downbearing

[David Love]

While equal front/back bearing is a good goal, I'd say more important is
that the front has positive bearing.  A slight favoring of the front of the
bridge as a hedge against ending up with a back positive and front negative
is, in my view, the prudent approach.  

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 6:47 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Downbearing

William Monroe wrote:
> I suppose I can see the argument for not loosing sleep over front and 
> back not being exactly equal, but my concern is more for something like 
> Frank described, and similar but not so severe cases.  I think it is of 
> practical importance to assure myself that there isn't anything 
> ridiculous going on front to back, making sure any net bearing reading 
> is meaningful.  In other words, net bearing, but not in a vacuum.  I'm 
> not suggesting you don't look at other parameters here, Ron, just wanted 
> to make explicit my thinking.

Gotcha. Sure, I look at component bearing too, hence the 
narrow set of feet on my Wixey base, I'm just not concerned if 
the angles aren't equal. I have measured negative rear bearing 
angles in the field, in pianos that sounded quite nice, 
incidentally.
Ron N