I came back from WEKA with several questions, and the discovery that I am
now a member of a new list, which leaves me in a quandry regarding which
one to post to.  Both?

1.  There was an Italian on display, I think by Keith Hill, in which the sb
grain was at right angles to the bridge.  I can sort of understand the
motivation for this, but now I find myself wondering about ribs.  With the
grain spanning the short dimension of the sb, it would seem that the bridge
could provide adequate stiffening in the long, or cross-grain,
direction....Are there more ribs than this, and if so, in which direction
would they be expected to run?

2.  I looked closely at the wound strings on the clavichords, which is
something that for some reason had not interested me in the past.  By
coincidence, I see on the new list a discussion of the machinery used to do
the winding, which is something that I was pondering on the airplane on the
trip home.  (As the Zen master says, when the pupil is ready, the teacher
will appear.  Or was that Robert Schuler?)  So now my question is, is this
kind of winding ever used on the bass strings of fluegel harpsichords, as
for example if one wanted to make an instrument that was physically short?

3.  I forget what the third one was... it has something to do with
scaling.   It will come to me.

JB