Duane- The chances of the forks working for a piano aren't very good. First, you will need a good set of forks (Walker blue is probably the best available, though perhaps you can find a used set of Deagan forks.) Second, you will need to control for temperature. Liquid crystal aquarium thermometers are cheap, and work well for thse purposes. (My A fork is calibrated to pocket temperature, and fits in a leather pouch with the thermometer patch on the outside.) How to control the temperature of 12 forks will be your experimental discovery! Aluminum is too temperature sensitive. You could make a little box resonator to hold a fork and project the sound. But meanwhile you will have the issue of inharmonicity to deal with. You might get better results tuning to the lower octave, say C3-C4, using the forks at a higher partial. This may be the "catch." I don't know how far off the inharmonicity would throw the readings. You would have to buy the forks and experiment, comparing the results to your ETD for a start. It might depend on what piano you are tuning. And you also will need to do a very accurate tuning to the forks. You'd need to use a test note, such as the F2-A4 test. Meanwhile...take a look at Eric Nickiforoff's One-Two-Three! temperament in the March Journal. This is a great beginner's temperament. The video demonstration is already up at http://www.ptg.org/journal-media.php. (And this would be a free start...you'll be lucky to find a set of forks for less than $150.) In April we are publishing a temperament sequence by Jim Coleman which uses A2 and runs from C#3 to C#4. Jim feels that many people benefit from the lower pitches and slower beat rates of this sequence. Duane, take your time and enjoy all the fine vibrations! Ed Sutton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Conrad Hoffsommer" <hoffsoco at luther.edu> To: <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 5:37 AM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Tuning test idea - fly or not ? >I tried it years ago, but I don't think the fork set itself had a good > temperament to begin with. > One of these days I'll put them up against my ETD and try to confirm > what my ears told me. > > What if your fork set flunks the test? Then what??? > > Conrad > > On 2/27/09, Kent Swafford <kswafford at gmail.com> wrote: >> Using tuning forks to set the temperament would by unusual but allowed >> because you would be using aural techniques. Almost any CTE would try >> to talk you out of this, however; our experience is that you are >> likely to be disappointed with the results. >> >> >> Kent Swafford >> >> >> >> On Feb 27, 2009, at 9:18 PM, Duaine & Laura Hechler wrote: >> >>> I think I can probably do the rest. But what about setting the >>> temperament with tuning forks ? >>> >>> -- >>> Duaine Hechler >>> Piano, Player Piano, Pump Organ >>> Tuning, Servicing & Rebuilding >>> Reed Organ Society Member >>> Florissant, MO 63034 >>> (314) 838-5587 >>> dahechler at att.net >>> www.hechlerpianoandorgan.com >>> -- >>> Home & Business user of Linux - 10 years >>> >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > Conrad Hoffsommer, RPT > Luther College > Decorah, IA > > >
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