Another bearing question - call for expertize

[John Delacour]

At 11:46 pm +0200 9/5/07, Stéphane Collin wrote:

>Have this gorgeous 1878 8 ft Bechstein...But here is my question : 
>is this a sign that the piano had too much downbearing, or not 
>enough ?  Indeed, when unstringing, the hole load on the board 
>decreased, but then, the board going up, the load of the remaining 
>strings was larger than before (or not ?).  So when restringing, 
>should I aim for more or less overall downbearing ?

Hello Stéphane,

Q1: Did you take any measurement of the curvature of the soundboard 
before you removed the strings?
Q2: Among your experiments to improve the sound, did you include any 
tapping down of the strings at the bridge?
Q3: Have you removed the metal frame yet and if so, did you get any 
unpleasant surprises?

I find it's almost impossible to judge these situations without the 
physical presence of the whole piano and the intuitive messages it 
gives.  One possibility that occurs to me -- and I could easily be 
quite wrong -- is that there was too much load on the bass bridge, 
but then on this piano I guess there are only 17 or 19 notes on this 
bridge, though at very high tension.

JD

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Delacour Pianos  *  34 Station Road  *  Poole  *  Dorset  *  BH14 8UD
Phone:  01202 731031  *  Mobile: 07801 310 689  *  Fax: 0870 705 3241 
______________________________________________________________________