plate bolts

[Ron Nossaman]

Tuning a CFIII yesterday, I again noticed something that I've always
wondered about. For at least as long as I've been in the business,
Yamaha has had these wonderful adjustable plate bolts, equivalent in
function to what WN&G now sells. I adapted (stole) the idea, with a
different implementation, for my plate suspension system. Yet the CFIII
uses what appear to be regular, albeit very shiny lags, with the plate
sitting on dowels.

Why in the world would they have used an archaic dowel suspension system
in their top tier piano instead of their own marvelous adjustable bolts?
Strikes me as strange.

Ron N

[Don]

Hi Ron,

This is probably why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

 

Regards,
Don Rose

---

From: Ron Nossaman <rnos...@cox.net>

[Will Truitt]

That is simple, Ron.  Doesn’t Steinway call them acoustic dowels?  How do you think the magic vibrations travel around the soundboard in the “Circle of Sound”?  They travel through from the strings into the plate and then climb down the acoustic dowels  and start running around the soundboard pell mell.  Makes for longer sustain.

 

Sheesh, Ron.  I thought you of all people would know these things.  J

 

Will

[Isaac OLEG]

No better answer, is it sarcastic ? , or again some private knowledge protection ?

I guess I have at last a theoretical answer on the point. You probably could have access to Ron .

[Isaac OLEG]

That Said the video is perfect!

[Ron Nossaman]

On 6/7/2013 2:41 PM, Will Truitt wrote:
> That is simple, Ron. Doesn’t Steinway call them acoustic dowels? How
> do you think the magic vibrations travel around the soundboard in the
> “Circle of Sound”? They travel through from the strings into the plate
> and then climb down the acoustic dowels and start running around the
> soundboard pell mell. Makes for longer sustain.

Yamahas sound somewhat different though, and don't fantasize circles of
sound in public, so why the dowels when their adjustable bolts are so nice?

I know it will never make any difference to say so, but this is a
serious question.

Ron N

[MARK WISNER]

Yup...you've got right.

---

From: Don <pian...@yahoo.com>
To: "pian...@googlegroups.com" <pian...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 7, 2013 2:17 PM

Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

[Isaac OLEG]

Could be that the plate is made more active, possibly also with L iron, not vacuumed ? 

[Ron Nossaman]

On 6/7/2013 3:48 PM, MARK WISNER wrote:
> Yup...you've got right.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Don <pian...@yahoo.com>
> *To:* "pian...@googlegroups.com" <pian...@googlegroups.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, June 7, 2013 2:17 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [ptech] plate bolts

>
> Hi Ron,
>
> This is probably why:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

Very sad.
Ron N

[Will Truitt]

Speaking seriously, it does not make sense to me either. I have been using adjustable plate bolts since I started doing my own soundboards about 5 years ago. It gives you the opportunity to finesse your downbearing and make corrections as you determine such are needed. I measure my bearing, take quantified crown readings in a number of places under the board. If my ear hears something lacking, then I can make choices to raise, lower, taper the bearing. It only takes about half an hour to make the changes (not including tuning - it definitely affects the tuning!)
It is an opportunity to have a positive effect on the tone of a strung instrument that you can't get anywhere else except by adjustable hitch pins, and it can save your bacon.

These adjustable plate bolts are a boon to all other pianos. There is no reason why they would not confer the same advantages to a concert grand. Given that a CG is a flagship piano, it certainly seems like a missed opportunity to me.

Will

-----Original Message-----
From: pian...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pian...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2013 4:39 PM
To: pian...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

[lcl...@yahoo.com]

And why wouldn't the "Circle of Sound" work just as well without the dowel sytem, anyhow? Thumpe Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad

---

From: Ron Nossaman <rnos...@cox.net>;

To: <pian...@googlegroups.com>;
Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

Sent: Fri, Jun 7, 2013 8:39:27 PM

[Ron Nossaman]

On 6/7/2013 5:02 PM, lcl...@yahoo.com wrote:
> And why wouldn't the "Circle of Sound" work just as well without the
> dowel sytem, anyhow?

I have no doubt the circle of sound will work the same in any case.
Ron N

[Ron Overs]

Ron and all,

Its seriously a better idea. If Steinway started to use them there
would be a mad rush to adopt it. Like so many other makers who are
trying to get noticed, they can't help building Steinway clones.

Were's the creativity in that?

Ron O.

--
OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
Grand Piano Manufacturers
_______________________

Web http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:r...@overspianos.com.au
_______________________

A web page with images of recent work and almost-audio-CD quality mp3
sound files of the Overs piano can be found at;
http://overspianos.com.au/more_info.htm

So put on your headphones, plug them into your freshly restarted
computer and sit back to over 20 minutes of pure piano.
_______________________

[Ron Nossaman]

On 6/7/2013 6:32 PM, Ron Overs wrote:
> Ron and all,
>
> Its seriously a better idea. If Steinway started to use them there would
> be a mad rush to adopt it.

That'll never happen unless someone comes up with Theodore's lost papers
behind an old filing cabinet indicating that Steinway invented the
adjustable plate bolt. That's a bit much even for them.

>Like so many other makers who are trying to
> get noticed, they can't help building Steinway clones.

As long as the public "knows" Steinway is the best piano in the world
even if they've never actually touched one, and as long as techs defend
them no matter how they sound and function, that's not likely to change.

> Were's the creativity in that?

In the marketing department. Those folks have been really good for a
long time.
Ron N

[Joseph Garrett]

Ah, the inscrutable mindset, methinks.<G>
Best,
Joe

Joe Garrett, R.P.T.
Captain of the Tool Police
Squares R I
http://gpianoworks.com/


> [Original Message]

> From: Ron Nossaman <rnos...@cox.net>
> To: <pian...@googlegroups.com>

> Date: 6/7/2013 10:45:43 AM
> Subject: [ptech] plate bolts

[Terry Farrell]

I've long said that every Marketing 101 textbook should have a full chapter on Steinway's 150 years of marketing.

Terry Farrell

[Isaac OLEG]

Ah...... Feel better.....

[Isaac OLEG]

I guess that with that lighter damping obtained with that mounted fixation, we cannot avoid a certain amount of metal sounding tone, the same the public is slowly beginning to be accustomed to.

[lcl...@yahoo.com]

Seriously, though, Oleg... I don't believe the single attachment's "damping less" means much, as cast iron doesn't oscillate, anyhow. (Its' tonally "dead". Klunkkkk.)

Thumpe Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad

---

From: Isaac OLEG <isaac...@gmail.com>;

To: <pian...@googlegroups.com>;
Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

Sent: Sat, Jun 8, 2013 8:45:16 AM

[Isaac OLEG]

, Not really, it have low frequencies resonances (and even higher ones) that are seriously avoided by piano makers, or used with some profit in a specific aesthetics

I will send the damping capacity of spherical iron,(  highly used too with some vacuuming processes)  and cast iron (lamellar) if you wish

Their damping is different, the best one being cast Iron. 

Just bump on a iron brace on a Yamaha and you will know what I mean. (it is even used by musicians to make some funny percussion)

If you want to avoid them by adding masses the plate is more prone to cause problems, so lighter plate constructions are preferred, together with very robust wood bracing and rim.

I am just translating something about the different designs used, with more or less massive plates, and how much their imprint is perceived in the tone.

Not my imagination, it is just the thinking of reputeable piano designers, with some 150 years of knowledge behind them. Not to say that when a soundboard is build , or repaired and no precise crown is obtained , and no precise inner stress is obtained or intended, , having a mean to fine tune the plate position is really a big help, as downbearing is not an amount of crown but an amount of resiliency.

[Ron Nossaman]

Absolute nonsense. Another fine totally uninformed guess.
Ron N

[Ron Nossaman]

It occurs to me that this will almost certainly immediately explode in
73 unrelated directions, so I'll explain before that happens.

I've been using my own version of height adjustable bolts for some
years, and WN&G has sold a considerable number of their version to other
rebuilders. My experience is that these bolts (both mine and WN&Gs) do
NOT in any way impart a metallic sound to the piano but are a first rate
solid mounting system offering the additional luxury of height
adjustment. If you had ever actually used these bolts in a piano that
wasn't a Yamaha, instead of guessing, you might have noticed that the
piano didn't become a Yamaha tonally as a result. If these bolts made
any piano sound like a Yamaha, I assure you I wouldn't use them.
Ron N

[Encore Pianos]

I find it dubious also. Here are some thoughts.

Cast iron is used in good quality power cutting tools for beds because of its superior damping characteristics, as compared to most other materials where strength and rigidity are required. It is relatively cheap and can be cast with relative ease. Plates can be resonant on occasion - the struts of some vacuum cast plates come to mind. Mostly though, we are blissfully unaware of any audible resonances coming off a plate when played. That does not mean there is no vibratory energy in a plate when a piano is played loudly as no material would serve as a perfect barrier to the transmission of vibration into its body. But iron plates generally function as an effective barrier and minimize those effects.

I just did a little experiment on a Steinway M I have sitting in the shop, strung and playable. I picked out a low bass note and wacked on it pretty hard and holding the note while placing my hand on the plate in places close to the rim. I thought I could feel a little vibration there. When I placed my hand in the center of a strut, there was more obviously a vibration. But I could not hear any sound coming of that vibrating strut.

If I am touching the plate near the lag bolts, there is little vibration there. Perhaps that is because it is in an area of the plate that is massive and large, making it a more efficient damper.

By way of contrast, if I place my hand on the outside of the rim in the area where the panel rests on the inner rim, there is a considerably stronger vibration. But I cannot hear that either.

It is possible that some small modicum of energy will travel through the plate to the lag bolt and travel down it into the rim. But it is likely that a far greater quantity of energy has passed into the rim from the vibrating panel and would travel up the lag bolt to the plate. But I have never heard a vibration around the plate bolts when properly secured. No one who is asserting that there is an acoustic effect has in any way quantified the amount of energy traveling through these various bodies.

That being so, it would seem that to ask whether an adjustable plate bolt is more resonant than an "acoustic" dowel" is nothing more than an academic question with no relevance in practice. We cannot hear either, so it does not matter. We choose to use one or the other on other practical considerations.

But I can hear the difference using adjustable plate bolts. It helps me set bearing more accurately and correctly, and that makes the piano sound better. :-)

Will Truitt

-----Original Message-----
From: pian...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pian...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman

Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2013 9:56 AM
To: pian...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

[Encore Pianos]

So Ron, you are confident that if I use adjustable plate bolts on a Steinway S, it won't make it sound like a GH-1?

Will

-----Original Message-----
From: pian...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pian...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Nossaman

Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2013 10:37 AM
To: pian...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ptech] plate bolts

[Ron Nossaman]

On 6/8/2013 10:11 AM, Encore Pianos wrote:
> So Ron, you are confident that if I use adjustable plate bolts on a
> Steinway S, it won't make it sound like a GH-1?

Quite confident, though there's a good chance you won't be able to pull
it up to pitch without breaking the strings in the high treble - with
that 57mm C-8.
Ron N

[Isaac OLEG]

Thnks,

It may be an academic question, or Yamaha decided that the damping was better, the plate mass better used with dowels (less energy loss, as you know places where energy losses occur in a piano are numerous and some are unsuspected) ,  Or they just decide they have enough control on the shape and dimensions of their soundboard to use that setup Or they chase for the tone thickness and reserve that miss them and that make their pianos less suiteable for Romantic music, so they try something new

The argument that the plate and the rim can be felt vibrationning but cannot be heard, is not valid The tone is colored by those vibrations, the plate, or even the rim, are not really considered as tools to radiate tone (while the rim seem to be on some pianos)

The choice of the iron is also impacting the level of damping, I cannot be sure that vacuumed plates are all using spherical iron, but that was said to me at numerous times, and those Yamaha struts are sounding strong, way more and differently than the grey iron of Steinways and other more classical instruments, 

Resonances in plates are not supposed to be, but at last they can be kept under control or tentatives could be made to do soThe place would be "allowed" to color the tone, which it will be more prone to do if it is made with thin struts well kept in shape by a strong wood bracing

Then I do not deny the huge advantage for rebuilding , of those adjusteable plate fications

If you would be gnetle enough and can obtain some recordings done by some good pianists playing instruments fitted with such systems, I could decide for myself if the tone is more or les "metalli" (a huge simplification, but you get the idea)

I suggest that simply bumping on the plate with rubber mallets would tell you the amount of freeness of the mounted plate and how sonorous it is no need to use bass notes,

Thanks for making that conversation more interesting than it was

[Isaac OLEG]

About bumping, I regularly bump and slap hard the rim and listen to the amount of resonance coming from there.

It say me something about the quality of key frame bedding and action stress/torque.

About the regulated plate bolts , they may be dangerous to use with thick plates, that are not accepting much strain in the treble section. 

Not more than the adjustable bolts installed under the string rest, but it may complicate the setup (where is the neutral position ?)