Bridge Pins & Nega Bearing

[Ron Nossaman]

> I'll admit to having been snoozing while this Great Debate raged, but 
> it's a little bit of a shock to wake up and find myself in the same 
> paddy wagon as the mongoloid hordes you describe. <G>

One of the more comprehensive discussion was between Phil Ford 
and me last year, on seating strings, which should catch you 
up pretty quickly.


> I'll be interested to see who makes that claim, too. I was talking about 
> the pinning, ie., the integrity of the holes the pins are driven in. So 
> I guess I can take it that if the bridge cap is split at the bridge 
> pins, that's entirely the work of side bearing. I agree that you'd 
> probably have to create several inches of negative crown for the string 
> deflection in the vertical plane to come anywhere close to that in the 
> horizontal plane (side-bearing). But it's hard to shake the notion that 
> while positive downbearing is borne entirely by the bridge, negative 
> downbearing is assigned to the bridge pins. The bridgepins are the means 
> by which the strings are pulled downwards from a straight path. 
> Irespectagardless of crown.

Sure, there would be more side stress on bridge pins with 
negative bearing, but not much compared to that produced by 
the offset angle. At 160 pounds, a 1° bearing angle produces 
about 2.8 pounds, while a 10° offset angle produces about 25 
lbs.


> Which is why if I were to design a piano with negative crown and bearing 
> in the belly, which worked, I'd look for another way of coupling the 
> strings to the bridge.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but wonder why anyone 
would want to design a piano with negative crown and bearing. 
I don't think of any benefit to doing so.

Ron N