[pianotech] question about agraffes and uprights

[Roger@Integra.net]

Ron,
I was one of those technicians who tried using water hardened drill rod as a 
bridge pin because of the almost unlimited sizes available to reduce the 
amount of "drill out" of the bridge cap to facilitate the next larger size. 
Ed McMorrow  told me that he experienced the same zing years ago. You are 
correct to mention the many variables into the piano design that dictate the 
qualitative aspects of piano tone, thus my mention of those that might want 
to pick apart my explanation -- just too many variables -- and spot on with 
your comments of the low quality without and the good quality uprights.

Euphonious,
The Yamaha U5 upright use agraffes throughout the scale.

Roger Gable

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ron Nossaman
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 8:02 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] question about agraffes and uprights

On 2/8/2013 6:00 PM, Roger at Integra.net wrote:
>Certainly, it is known that if you install a hard bridge pin
> made of water cooled drill rod, you will hear a zing in the string
> especially in the mid to lower sections; so hardness of the
> terminations are important.

Is it? I confess I've never tried it, nor run across it. String
termination zings I've encountered have always been from inadequate
bearing or pin angles. I know Ron Overs is a big fan of hardened
terminations, and routinely electroless nickel plates agraffes to harden
the termination surface. He has also custom made steel agraffes to get
as hard and rigid a termination as he can. He flame hardens capos as
well. His pianos are as clean sounding as anything I've heard.


> Now let’s see how the flood of
> comments or counter comment picks this apart, especially those that
> claim that the lower quality grand pianos with no agraffes sound
> “fine” and the good quality uprights without agraffes sound great.

To me, lower quality grands without agraffes sound like lower quality
grands, and good quality uprights tend to sound like good quality
uprights if the voicing is decent. I can't blame either on the presence
or lack of agraffes. There are way too many other variables.
Ron N