V-Pro discussion

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Nossaman <nossaman@SOUTHWIND.NET>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 1999 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: V-Pro discussion


> Well, you gotta admit, I showed uncommon restraint.

Yes, you did.  I'm suitably impressed.


> I let that one simmer
> and age for a whole day before I said anything. Since no one else bit,
I'll
> take the plunge. What the heck, someone has to. You might guess, this
> doesn't really surprise me all that much, given your previous posts about
> the obscene cost in both money and hassle to get geared up for casting
iron
> plates. I can also see the higher tensile strength of steel, and the
> relative ease of in-house fabrication appealing to you. (You may end up
with
> the only full time plate welder in captivity)

uh, who said anything about welding?


> I also assume you wouldn't
> have mentioned it if you didn't already have the press release all worked
up
> in the event that some clown like myself actually questioned you about it,
> so... Say there, Del, tell us about your steel plate design.

No press release.  But I am going to build a couple of them just to see what
happens.


< G> Is it a
> flat plane sort of thing, set high at the rim to clear the board crown, or
> is it crown conformed to some degree? Welded on struts similar in
> configuration to the cast plates, or a torsion box sort of approach that
we
> wouldn't find all that familiar, like an egg carton?

There are a lot of ways a steel plate could be built.  For the details,
you'll just have to wait and see.  The same as me.  However...

I remember hearing about why piano plates were made of cast iron instead of
steel as much as 30 years ago.  The two main reasons that are usually given
are:
  1)  They are not stable.  Cast iron is rigid, hence it stabilizes tuning
better than steel.
  2)  They ring because they don't have all that carbon in them.

I also remember repeating these arguments to one of the engineers I worked
with a few years back and watched him smile as he asked me to tell him about
all the pianos I had built using steel plates.  He then explained to me that
he had actually worked on a project that involved building pianos with steel
plates.  To make a long story short, I now also have built pianos using
steel plates.  Not a lot of them, but enough to give me at least as much
experience with them as anyone else in this business.  In this country at
least.  In every case the pianos using these plates have proven to be better
pianos than the instruments following them but using conventional cast iron
plates.  They were stable and they did not ring.  They were also expensive.
It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

Del