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Ed didn't say these methodologies have been employed in a factory. He said that those people who are familiar with them--including people in factories--wouldn't denigrate them (e.g. "voodoo" and "maverick").

Not only did he not claim that they've been employed in factories, but he clearly made the point that they are not applicable to production processes (in the very sentence after the quoted text was truncated).

Being aware of something, or familiar with it, doesn't mean it's necessarily been adopted.

OE1FEU, I would not describe the front duplex as passive vibration since the wire stiffness carries information across the front termination point in the vast majority of pianos ever made. The two segments are linked. That is why the front duplex makes a difference in tone.

OE1FEU, before you put your foot in it any further, you ought to do a little reading and report back to us. www.stanwoodpiano.com

In my practice the pivot idea (and longer string segments) has proven to be much more valid than any harmonic relationship has in the high treble. So kudos to Ed on that. Its of course just a piece of the piano puzzle for a singing treble. Others are proper soundboard mass and stiffness, Harder bridge cap material, accurate pinning, clean terminations, voiced hammers, and i also remove any metal to metal interfaces.

-chris

How generous. Please have that discussion with Helmholtz and Steinway themselves, not with me.

Sure. Throwing a 1990s style web page at someone you disagree with has always turned out to be the perfect rebuttal to a critic's question.

Never mind ignoring questions like "Can you give any specifics about the companies, departments, persons in charge and actual changes in production, research and development involved?".

Sure. And when you can't make valid points, you can always resort to an ad hominem attack.


No one has made this claim. You simply demand it (repeatedly). Corporate embrace is not the singular measure of legitimacy.

OE1FEU, What do you mean by "passive" since you introduced the term as regards string segments?

As I wrote: Front and rear duplex scale.

I always find it amusing when someone with no technical knowledge of the technology being discussed attempts to commandeer the conversation with claims of its illegitimacy, especially when they're inventing positions to argue against.

I am sorry I don't understand. What does being in a passive state have to do with front and rear duplexes. I don't understand how you are using the term "passive".

And further, do you think there are any differences, (other than physical relative position that is denominated by the positional references), between front and rear duplexes?

I believe Kawai uses some of Stanwoods' protocols in their top tier pianos. Maybe Don Mannino will check in and confirm that.

Kawai? Heck, I use some of David's protocols and research in my own restoration work. When factory actions have front-weight variances of 5 or 6 grams from key to key, a "rebuilder" that replaces the action without establishing a consistent FW is missing out on a lot of the value of Stanwood's work.

That is a loose interpretation of the word "critic", who is one that is familiar with what they critique. You seem to be unaware of David's working protocols and you seem to be critical of the concept of aftermarket improvement to factory production.

If you want to know more about it, do your homework, I am not here to do your research for you.
regards,

Not to stir the pot, but can the notion of consistency in this regard be attributed to Stanwood, or more specifically the process he advocates? Are there other ways or approaches to achieve a high level of consistency?

One of the big problems with trying to measure consistency is that very few people ever go back to measure what they did after they first do it.

Yes. Simple first priciples of consistently gradated front weights and the same for strike weight has to be obeyed for the higher degrees of consistency, and matching the two curves with the optimum action ratio is what David's work is all about Stanwood's approach is a formula, many of us know what limits FW has to obey, and can work from there, or the hammers coming back.
Regard,s

David Stanwood has been doing his thing for at least 30 years, and most of us would agree that he has advanced the state of our art in ways that are important. I don't use all of his protocols but I do use several of them, and it has improved the consistency and predictability of my work.


Since OE1FEU's intellectual curiosity goes no deeper than the appearance of David Stanwood's facepage on his website, I see no reason to take him seriously. I was hoping he might read some of what is there. Foolish me.

BDB, there is no big problem in measuring consistency. How many people choose to follow through and confirm their results has no bearing on how consistent the results are. Stanwood's work is very much about quantifying our results with the methods used to achieve them.