pianoman wrote: > > Today I tuned a pre-1895 Shubert upright. Instead of having an upper and > lower bridge pin on the bridge, the middle of the bridge was hollowed out > with a pressure bar appliance was screwed down on top of the strings. To James Grebe, Warren Fisher, et al: Well, now, wait a just a moss (We don't grow cotton out here, but there is lots of fuzzy green stuff that I think is moss. Or something.) pickin minute here! Just what was really so wrong with that Shubert bridge system? One function of the piano bridge is to provide an acoustical and physical termination for the vibrating (speaking) portion of the string. Another is to couple the energy from that vibrating string to the soundboard/rib assembly. Apparently, this arrangement did both. At least to some extent. Down bearing, of course, is a whole other subject from string termination. James, you didn’t mention what condition the bridge termination system was in. Just that it looked odd. Apparently, the system is still working—at least to some extant. After 102 years, that gives the system some credibility all by itself. I’d really like to know more about it. I have some questions. 1) What did the strings actually rest on? Wood? Some type of metal insert? Anything? 2) Did this system continue all the way down through the bass? 3) What condition was the system in? Had the bridge developed any cracks where the screws from the “pressure bar” went into the wood? 4) Was the “pressure bar” continuous through each section, or were individual bars used at each unison? 5) How much string deflection was there? I’ve been puzzling over alternatives to the conventional offset bridge pin arrangement for some time now and I’d like to know more. It seems to me that, after a couple of hundred years of development, some viable system other than the bridge pin arrangement currently popular should have evolved. I realize you probably didn’t spend a whole lot of time examining the piano, but anything you can remember will be appreciated. A few of the things Rube invented actually worked pretty well, you know. Thanks, ddf
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