brass v. iron

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Don,
At 17:49 12/3/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi Conrad,
>
>So I would disagree that humidity is *not* a factor. I would also disagree
>with Roger how ever. You can give repeateable phenomina predict what the
>wood will do. (Atleast to the tuning).

Well, I didn't say that humidity wasn't a factor - completely. ;-} (How's
that for hedging?)

IMHO, If you could change the humidity and the temperature entirely
independent of each other I think you would see much more change due to
deltatemp within that 1.5 hr than due to deltaRH.

If there were no finish on the soundboard, or the time frame were longer,
then RH would certainly be a big factor. 

The original post referred to a fortepiano, which most likely doesn't have
any crown on soundboard (at least the beasty I care for doesn't), so... any
change wrought by humidity would have to be by the mechanism of changing the
entire case dimensions.  Finishes _are_ permeable, I know, but I don't think
that they are that transparent to humidity.


Conrad Hoffsommer  mailto:hoffsoco@luther.edu

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