Stuart & Sons' Agraffe

[pianorama]

What exactly is an agraffe? Did Stuart & Sons invent it? If not, why did they choose it? What advantages do agraffes have over whatever they normally use? does anyone know?

[gfiore]

  All well designed grand pianos, and some vertical have brass agraffes that terminate the strings before the tuning pins in the bass and tenor sections of the piano.  What Stuart is using is a patented bridge agraffe insted of using the more common bridge pins to terminate the speaking length of the strings at the bass and treble bridges.  Sohmer used a bridge agraffe a long time ago, but the Stuart version is much improved. Go to the Stuart website for a pic.

[cy_shuster]

Here's their site:
https://www.stuartandsons.com/

By the way, "agraffe" is French for "staple"...

--Cy--

[andyd]

You may also be interested in this website:

https://www.hurstwoodfarmpianos.co.uk/news.php?news_id=6

The owner, Richard Dain, stocks new Stuarts, Steingraebers & Bosendorfers.  He's a retired engineer who designed his own piano and has had two(one definitely, the other I think is still in process) built by Steingraeber in their 272 cabinet.  I hope to go and see the Phoenix as he has named it, soon. 

Anyhow, to the point, I'm no tech but the Phoenix has a different agraffe which he hopes improves on the Stuart design - to quote from his website:
"Improving the contact compliance and area of contact between strings and bridge with a novel bridge agraffe. The agraffe (inspired by but not working the same way as  the design  by Wayne Stuart ) ensures the string vibrates principally and with stability in the vertical plane.  On conventional pianos the plane of string vibration rotates slowly throughthe horizontal as the note decays."

I saw his prototype which he'd built into a Bosendorfer Imperial...he's a real enthusiast, nearly 80 years old, nothing like a dealer.  As I remember, the strings go over knife edged ridges so when hit they vibrate vertically.  There's probably more to it...

Andy

[cy_shuster]

Here's another bridge termination that attempts to improve sound.  It hasn't taken the world by storm, though (yet)...
https://www.wapin.com
--Cy--