Alan, Tony, An interesting property of the equations is this: At a given length and frequency, the percentage breaking strength of the steel wire is constant. You can vary the wire size to play with tension, inharmonicity, power and impedence, but the percentage breaking strength does not change. FWIW Mike Spalding RPT ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Caught <caute@optusnet.com.au> To: Alan R. Barnard <mathstar@salemnet.com>; Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 8:04 AM Subject: Re: Upright and Grand rims, was: Impressive Steinway Upright Hi Alan, when designing a scale for a piano one has been told that you try to get an even tension across the scale. Unfortunately because of other factors in the modern piano the tension has been increased to a point that if you tried to use a thinner longer string in the upper treble it would be very close to breaking point of that gauge and would most certainly have lost its required elasticity to produce good tone. In the older pianos, late 1800's and earlier what you describe was common place. Regards Tony Caught caute@optusnet.com.au ----- Original Message ----- From: Alan R. Barnard To: Pianotech Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 4:56 AM Subject: Re: Upright and Grand rims, was: Impressive Steinway Upright Why does the high treble scale not have slightly thinner, somewhat longer strings? It seems to me that the short speaking lengths would contribute to lack of sustain, excess hammer sound vs. musical tone, difficulty in tuning etc. If breakability is a principal reason, could not the action be modified at that end with more let-off or such. I am fully aware that this question probably is naive, based on my limited experience, so I brace myself for incoming ... Alan Barnard
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC