<html> <body> There is an ongoing discussion with Ulrich Sauter at PianoWorld.com.  I got to ask him about usage of titanium.  He reports it is used for bridge-pins, duplex bearings, and hitch-pins.  He says,<br><br> <div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#000002">In our concert grand we unse titanium as material for the duplex scale parts, which helps to make the sound more clear and pure, loudness is less affected.</font><font color="#000002"> <br><br> </font></div> He reports that European manufacturers came late to duplex tuning and further comments,<br> <div align="center"><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#000002">A duplex scale is something like vagobonding tones under control, but every piano has a "natural" duplex scale, more or less. A well designed duplex scale can ad some clearness to the sound, but it is always connected with the quality of the soundboard. There are many duplex scale designs with different partial tones invilved, but in my opinion, this is negletable, they all work almost the same way.<br> </div> His use of "vagabonding" would coincide with our use of sympathetic resoance.  He also feels that the front duplex is more important.<br><br> The ebony bridge capping in the treble is two layers cross grained.  The purpose is to reduce/eliminate splitting along the grain resulting from side-bearing especially in the treble where the pins can tend to form a line in the grain.<br><br> Just a little of what's going on today.<br><br> Andrew Anderson</font></body> <br> </html>