On Apr 28, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Ed Sutton wrote: > Fred- > > This could be an opportunity to experiment with springs under the > soundboard....maybe set them on a rail parallel to the bridge, and > have nice adjustment screws to adjust tension.... ;-) > > Ed S. I have bunches of those gizmos, the springs in them seeming to be valve springs from cars. I have determined they were probably installed by Baldwin in the factory on the 30 or so Hamiltons UNM bought back in 1963. They also replaced four of the top plate screws with bolts through the back. I assume there was a warrantee claim, and they recalled them and did retrofits. Can't swear this is true, but there is a fair amount of evidence I have stumbled upon over the years. I have removed them from several instruments, and could tell no difference whatsoever. Hey, they are 40+ year old Hamiltons, so what was I expecting? Someone else installed similar devices under several grands. I have done deinstalls on them, and couldn't tell the difference. Maybe I wasn't sensitive enough at the time (all this was ten or more years ago), wasn't listening to/for the right things. I guess I might experiment if I get bored. I'm not really looking to make this into a paragon of a piano. I just need to restring it so I can tune it without too much cussing, and with half a chance of the unisons lasting over night (lots of friction between strings and underfelts and whatnot). Having never done an accujust, I have been inquiring. I have discovered that light is best. I will do that. It will probably be just fine as is. At any rate I probably won't have made it worse, as I might by doing a 1 degree plus rather than mostly under 0.5 degree. Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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