Horace Greeley hgreeley@leland.Stanford.EDU
Thu Jun 4 09:15 MDT 1998


Michael,

I admit to some confusion.

If the scale the rebuilder sent you is the one actually on the instrument,
why did they not rescale to begin with?  Under whatever passes for
normal circumstances in this business, I am not a great fan of arbitrarily
rescaling.  On the other hand, 10 unisons of anything (especially that
high in the scale) probably should be looked into.  (OK, lots and lots
of exceptions of scales that work very, very well with long runs of gauge
"x" wire - but, I think that most of these have runs of things like 18, or so,
in the low to mid tenor.)  

So, from that perspective, one approach might be to take that _most_ odd
top speaking length and simply see what the largest gauge is that will
not break (assuming that this might be one of those cases where 
we discover the limits of reductive assessment).  Then fill in with some
reasonable mixture of 2 to 4 unisons each of progressively larger 
wire until you get down to around note 80 - 82, where the tension seems
to be more reasonable.

To your second question, I wonder about the instrument, itself.  That is,
while pretty much unheard of since the turn of the century, the 1870-1890
period saw huge amounts of experimentation that got out into (usually
very limited) production.  Prime examples of this would be the M&H
DD, and the S&S "Missouri Class"  (my moniker for the dozen or so
11 - 12' S&S instruments produced).  No, I don't think it's one of those.
My vote, to the extent that it is accurate at all, would be for something
like a Chickering or Weber.  Both of these companies produced pianos
which, like the Thomas Organs of yesteryear, seem to have been
engineered on the production line.  So, that's sort of question one.  Kinda.

Another issue, virtually undiscussed these days, is the (to my mind)
extreme difference between the wires available to us now, and the
ones available even as late as the early 60s (to say nothing of the
ones from pre-WWI).  I am just old enough in the profession to have
seen a fair number of 19th Cent. instruments (never in large supply
on the West Coast) before they were, ah, "rebuilt".  Part of my 
observations of these instruments is the incredible difference in
the wire.  I remember many instruments from this general period 
where, while maybe not choice one from a certain standpoint, it
was possible to repin using the existing 100 year old wire.  This wire
was still flexible enough to be quite easily worked, new beckets
bent, etc.  This was particularly true on some Chickerings and
Webers - thus my thoughts above.

In specific regard to the issue of speaking length.  While I do 
think that part of the answer lies with differences in the wire, my
sense of this issue is that the figure of 2-1/8th" (which is, actually,
a _outside_ limit figure) represents the outer limit of one
variable of the equation that has to do with size, volume and
quality of tone production, transducer (soundboard) response
curves, etc., and, lest we forget, manufacturing costs.

Others understand the engineering physics of this kind of thing
much better than I.  The above should be considered the idle
ramblings of a befuddled mind with a presently insufficient supply
of caffeine.  A situation which I intend to rectify immediately.

So, Michael, whatkindapianoisitanyway?

Best.

Horace


Horace Greeley, CNA, MCP, RPT

Systems Analyst/Engineer
Controller's Office
Stanford University

email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 650.725.9062
fax: 650.725.8014


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