<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2604" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: = Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=rol= e_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   Sarah</DIV> <DIV> What your describing is a <STRONG>linear spring</STRONG> rate. IM= O a sound board system is more <STRONG>non-linear</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> This is the way it responds under my hand when stressing the pane= l to set bearing. The first 2-3 mm I compress it are not difficult but after that= it get's way stiffer. Hammers are also non linear felt springs.</DIV> <DIV>  Dale</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><= FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size= =2>Sarah wrote<BR>I think you're confusing stiffness with force.  "Stiffness" simply means <BR>"spring constant."  If you take a relaxed spring and= compress it by a mm, it <BR>takes a certain amount of force to do that.&nb= sp; Then if you compress the spring <BR>by 10 mm and add enough force to compr= ess it a mm more, it will take the <BR>same increment in force to compress it = that last mm as it took to compress <BR>the relaxed spring by the first mm.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>