The Mother of all Bellyrails

[Ron Nossaman]

>Well, let's not jump to conclusions just yet. All of the strings on the 
>transition bridge were plain steel, not wrapped. Though they may well have 
>been originally. The piano had been restrung and 'rescaled' some time 
>back. I've not yet run the scaling through to see what was there....

I'd hazard a guess that wrapped bichords will be going back on a bridge 
somewhere near there though, and on the new bass bridge too.


>Yes, we'll be resomething, anyway. Haven't decided just yet what approach 
>to take. I'm not sure I want to float the board as per the original. Nor 
>am I sure I want to put all that extranious iron back in there.

I can appreciate the reservations about the soundboard float, but all that 
iron acreage is sort of unique, albeit heavy. I sure don't remember ever 
seeing a damper guide rail bolted to a plate before, and I'd hate to give 
up something that strange. It might also be a good opportunity to screw 
that sucker to the belly rail for a killer octave sustain you can time with 
a sun dial.

Or are you not being paid by the pound?


>And there is more to that bass bridge than meets the eye. At first glance 
>there appears to be a substantial cantilever--

I couldn't tell, but I was wondering why the bridge went in a different 
direction with each change from mono-, to bi-, to trichords.

Nice case shape though.


> From the looks of them I'm quite sure these buttons, screws and spacers 
> were fit at the factory as the piano was being built. I'm speculating 
> that during production they discovered that bass bridge cantilevers 
> didn't work all that well but it was too late to take it out. So they 
> simply rendered it ineffective by putting in the spacers, buttons and screws.

I love these little indications where the design vision didn't quite mesh 
with production reality. Makes me wish I could go back to that day for a 
few hours  and watch quietly from the corner. I'd be quiet - honest.

Ron N