sanderson Bass strings/scale

[John Delacour]

At 9:54 AM -0500 11/29/01, Erwinspiano@AOL.COM wrote:

>     Having too much tension in a bass scale will choke the sustain 
>in any piano. Having too much tension in the bass or  treble cannot 
>only change the tone color but choke it as well.

That is quite so, and that is the reason that I regularly lighten and 
totally redesign the bass scales of certin makers, such as Grotiran 
and Schiedmayer, whose bass scales were ridiculously tight.  Such 
scales, for all their tension, produce a very muffled tone and the 
drastic lightening of the scale not only frees up the soundboard but 
allows the strings to develop a rich sound.  So much for rescaling 
the bass.

>   When I spoke at length with his shop foreman he said that the wire 
>size on noter 88 had gone from a no.13 to a 14 size wire. That's a 
>huge jump in tension. The 2 top trebles apparently received this 
>same whole size increase and was the most choked in both pianos.
>   I explained to them , as Del and Rons have stated many times, that 
>a rib scale is designed for a particular string scale. Yes, it is 
>possible to make string scale changes on an existing board. Many of 
>us have done it but, if the tension changes are too great the tone 
>and sustain will be altered in a negative way ,ask me how I know. 
> Scaling is a wonderful tool  but some times it's better not to mess 
>with success and the stwy O doesn't , I.M.H.O.,need drastic changes 
>in the stringing  scale.

Customers often ask me to look at the plain wire scale and "rescale" 
it.  I always have a look to see if any minor changes are desirable 
but the fact is that it is not possible to "rescale" the plain wire 
scale without fitting a new bridge, since it is the bridge and not 
primarily the wire gauges that define the scale.  On certain pianos, 
whose bridge is acceptable but which have been overloaded, it is 
possible to achieve a marked improvement in tone by a general 
lightening of the gauges, and this I have occasionally been able to 
do, but it is unusual.

As to the "rib scale", by which in effect I presume you mean the 
flexibility of the soundboard, well and good, but you imply that such 
makers as fitted a bridge and strung it with the effect of killing 
the sound of the piano nevertheless had the capability of designing a 
perfect soundboard to match their poor design.  In practice this is 
not always the case.  On the other hand the lightening of the 
stringing on baby grands and such, which are designed stiff 
throughout, has very bad effects, depriving the 'piano' of all power. 
It is not possible to generalize, since the fitting of a stiffer bass 
scale to a 5' Blüthner will be as disastrous as fitting a light set 
to an Aeolian.  One must know the piano and have a lot of experience 
to know what will work in a certain case.

>    In stwys capstan lines float because the block placement does and 
>so does the  bridge placement. If the length of note 88 is measured 
>on several different models say 6 different "Os" the string length 
>often be quite short and vary by as much as 1/4".(This is also true 
>of other stwy models) These less than 2" speaking lengths reduce 
>tension and therefore volume especially in the top octaves.

Both the O's I have in for rebuilding at the moment have C88 = 50.5 
mm == 2" exactly, and what they do in New York goodness knows but I 
would be surprised to find a variation of even a millimetre in a 
Hamburg Steinway let alone 6 mm.  When we were arguing about the 
Model B a while ago, a concensus seemed to be reached that 54 mm was 
a good length for C88 and the reason the B is consistently 
troublesome and dope-worthy in the extreme treble is that C88 is only 
48 mm or whatever.  You would be suggesting that I might come across 
a B with 54 mm rather than 48, which I find unlikely.

>  I have been routinely rotating the top of the bridge back when 
>installing a new board to accommodate a speaking length of 2". This 
>small change makes a modest increase in tension using the original 
>scale and improves power and projection in the top octave or so.

Most people would say you could go further.

>     Anyway a cut to the chase. The client restrung both "o"s with 
>mapes Bass strings and original scales. The sustain , power and 
>sonority  returned . From what I understand the client had a 
> discussion with ---- who was Quote rude and unprofessional. He did 
>however agree to refund his money for strings. But wow the loss of 
>time and labor cost. My client said that this was obviously Not the 
>first time that ---- has received these complaints

To change the wire gauges on a Steinway is deliberately to change the 
character of the tone -- and inevitably for the worse.  The long 
bridge on Steinways is correctly shaped and positioned for the 
Steinway sound, which comes from a relatively short, low-tension 
scaling.  In my opinion, it's the height of presumption to alter 
this.  Most of us know the design faults of the various Steinway 
models and noone would claim they're perfect, but if they'd wanted 
their pianos to sound like Broadwoods, they had sufficient skill at 
hand to succeed.  Steinways are designed to sound a certain way and 
to change the plain wire scale is plain stupid.

JD