I pretty much agree with Richard on all counts. The “fix” I’ve seen (never tackled it myself) involves, as I said, real gap spacers, not register supports; that was the whole point of mentioning them. It involves increasing the clearance in the gap by planing the box guides, and then relying upon the gap spacers, I presume, to provide at least some support for the width of the gap.

The thing with those ZHI Italians - perhaps Richard doesn’t have hands-on experience with them - is that the front edge of the gap is NOT a rigid wrestplank, which, yes, would drive a gap spacer into the bellyrail, forcing IT to deflect without internal backup support. The front edge is a scrawny strip of soft conifer wood which is covered with a narrow strip of “live” soundboard wood. That little strip is very flexible, and easily contorted into a much tighter pinch to the gap than would happen with solid wrestplank running all the way to the gap. So the gap itself is made up of TWO flimsy and yielding strips of soft wood. At least if their distance apart is controlled by gap spacers, it can be kept open.

I may have been wrong about whether the scaling of the ZHI Italian can tolerate 440 in brass, though I’m not wrong that if it can’t you can compensate merely by changing the stringing schedule. I know that the one scaling error, with “stretch,” giving the longest scale on the instrument is down in the bass octave, and is quite vulnerable to snapping. It may be that ZHI designed the scale to handle 440, though, so I suppose a real answer to Vincent’s question would be to ask ZHI directly about this. You’ll still have problems in the bottom end.

owen




> 
> 
> 
> Date:    Sat, 23 Jan 2016 18:55:01 -0600
> From:    Richard Schaumloffel <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: stringing chart Z Italian and gap spacers
> 
> One needs to look up the archives re. Bills comments on gap spacers. It seems things we call gap spacers are actually register supports in a lot of instruments. The risk is one is effectively using the bellyrail as a brace for the wrestplank and unless it is supported on the other side it can come loose from the soundboard. Kirkman's probably had actual gap spacers because they placed sloping struts going to the bottom on the other side behind each spacer.
> 
> I think it would be a better idea if this were a new build to give the registers plenty of clearance ie 1/8" or more within the gap. You could string in a stronger alloy such as phosphor bronze or beryllium copper to deal with the pitch problem but you may end up with nasty tonal problems.  
> 
> Richard
> 
> 

____________________________________


Owen Daly Early Keyboard Instruments
557 Statesman St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
http://www.dalyharpsichords.com
(503)-362-9396

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