the mass of the brass is a gass

[Nichols]

Ron,

   Funny you should mention this. I've got a customer with not enough job 
and a machine shop in his garage. He milled a small collection of round 
weights for me, from around 50g to one that's about 180. Almost the size of 
my scale calibration weight. I always appreciated the mass loading on the 
back of the Baldwin 6000 vertical, and after one of Del's classes I decided 
to be prepared. (the customer also liked feeling useful). I used one on a 
three-legged spinet, but haven't tried a true vertical spinet, yet. The 
Acrosonic sounds like a great candidate. Can't weight to try it! (sorry)
    What did you use to space your mass over the pins?

Guy


At 03:13 PM 3/4/2004 -0600, you wrote:

>I got to be a junior grade hero the other day. The piano is a poor old 
>funky Acrosonic, and the daughter was being driven crazy by the last note 
>on the low tenor. It's a wrapped string, but the first half dozen notes of 
>the low tenor are on a cantilever. That last unison BONGED terribly. I 
>told her there likely wasn't much I could do with it, but I'd give it a 
>look and see.
>
>After the tuning, I experimentally clamped my little Vise-Grip on one of 
>the bridge pins of that last unison and the bong disappeared. The 
>bass/tenor transition was even relatively tolerable. I called in the 
>daughter and had her play across the break, then removed the Vise-Grip and 
>had her try again. She was really impressed, so we called Mom at work and 
>got executive authorization for a fix of sorts.
>
>For the last couple of years, I've carried about a 70g brass weight with a 
>screw soldered into it. I use it for the occasional diagnostic test in 
>killer octaves and low tenors. I installed it on the bridge top, since the 
>cantilever posed some problems to back side installation, floating it 
>clear of the bridge pins so it wouldn't buzz. It looks pretty goofy, but 
>it's behind the knee board where it won't typically be seen, and the 
>difference it made in sound was dramatic. It's still a funky old 
>Acrosonic, but now it's more uniformly funky and a lot easier to listen to.
>
>Now I have to make another weight.
>Ron N
>
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