birdcages

[Richard Brekne]

I have always been under the understanding that these things were not meant to
damp as well as the underdamper system does. That in fact the extra .... resound
was a thought to be a desirable thing and contributed to sustain and other tonal
attributes much in the way duplex is supposed to.

That being said we have to remember that almost none of us has ever seen a
birdcage in top notch working order... with brand new parts prepared and
regulated by an expert who was willing to use the time neccessary to do such a
job.

I have seen such a piano and it was quite nice to play on, and damped very well
indeed, so again its damping was definatly not the dry sort.

Also these things damp at a different node area on the string which also
contributes to the basic "sound" of the piano.

Not being one to encourage much time and effort on this type of piano
otherwise... I just couldnt help throwing in a small defense of these hated
beasts. Granted most of them had some pretty bad qualities in other regards....
but heck... they made thousands and thousands of these things... they must have
been somewhat useable at one time.. or what ?

Stephen Powell wrote:

> Okay, I have to jump in on this one!  Last year I "reconditioned" the action
> of one of these things - yeah I know, but the owners were willing to pay
> what it cost even after I tried to talk them out of it.  Anyway, I put in a
> new set of damper felts that I cut myself [the precut set I got from Renner
> were too flimsy IMO] and I was very surprised how well the thing damped,
> although still not as well as an underdamper.  The dampers above the
> tenor/treble break were next to useless though because there isn't enough
> room between the hammers and v-bar for dampers.
>
> I'm beginning to wonder about this conspiricy thing - I see on average one
> or two birdcages per week.  Somebody's got it in for me!
>
> Stephen
>
> Auckland, NZ
>
> >In a message dated 2/11/00 2:12:04 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> >bases-loaded@juno.com writes:
> >
> ><< Hello -
> >
> > After having the good fortune to have not run into a birdcage action in
> > app. 10 years, I had the extreme misfortune to run into 2 of them this
> > week.  I have basically two questions, although "what were they
> > thinking?" also comes to mind.
> >
> > 1.  Do these actions ever damp well?  In both instances, the damper felt
> > seemed soft enough, and was regulated properly, but the pianos sounded as
> > if someone forgot to install dampers!
> >
> > 2.  What is the most sane way to tune these critters?  I actually had to
> > lean the actions back and pluck strings in the center section, as it was
> > impossible to get mutes in there.  Do you lean it back and strip mute the
> > whole thing?  I can't imagine a process that isn't unwieldy...
> >
> > It is no great surprise to me that this design went out of favor 100
> > years ago!
> >
> > Mark Potter
> > bases-loaded@juno.com
> >
> >

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway