[pianotech] Not one of Bechstein's design triumphs.....

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Yes, well, with a lot of those Kimball's the whole piano was a design error.
And, sadly, the Kimball was not the only--or the worst--culprit. It was just
the best known.

ddf

Delwin D Fandrich
Piano Design & Fabrication
6939 Foothill Court SW, Olympia, Washington 98512 USA
Phone  360.515.0119 — Cell  360.388.6525
del at fandrichpiano.com — ddfandrich at gmail.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 5:42 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Not one of Bechstein's design triumphs.....

On 3/29/2012 3:15 AM, David Boyce wrote:

> In general, then, do you design folks think its OK to have strings 
> resting against the coils on neighbouring strings?

In general, I'd say no, but like any "universal" rule, in practice or by
circumstance, it's a matter of degree. What you pictured is a non-issue
functionally. The strings may touch neighboring coils, but they aren't
binding in any way that will affect tuning, which makes it largely cosmetic.
That's why no one jumped on it immediately, because it's a "so what?" We
have lots of Kimball verticals here, and in lesser numbers Baldwins, with
strings snaking back and forth around neighboring coils at drastic
deviations, jamming together so that you literally can't tune the low tenor
unisons because moving the next string moves the just tuned one. I thought I
had a photo of one of these travesties, but I don't find it, which is a
shame. You ought to get to see a good example of real design and production
stupidity, which was perpetuated year after year after year, through tens of
thousands of pianos, and never corrected. The Baldwins, in this case,
actually had room for the strings to be placed correctly, so were more
likely a working design originally, but pin rows were shifted in translating
the design to production that caused the interference. At least that's how
it looked to me. The Kimballs, however, could never have worked under any
circumstances.

I did find one characteristic example of the fine attention to detail and
craftsmanship characteristic of Kimball, but unfortunately not the right
one.

Ron N