US316445A - Piano-forte - Google Patents

Description

(No Model.)

G. COOK.

Fig.1.

Inventor UNITED STATES PATENT OEEIcE.

GEORGE COOK, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

PIANO-FORTE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No.316fi45, dated April 28, 1885.

Application filed March 19, 1884. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE Goox, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Piano-Fortes; and I do hereby declare the same to be described in the following specification and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which Figure 1 is a top view, and Fig. 2 a transverse section, of part of the string-frame of a piano, such being to show my invention applied thereto, the nature of it being defined in the claims hereinafter presented. Fig. 3 is a vertical section of one of the agraffes H, while Fig. 4 is a vertical section of one of the agraffes H, to be described.

The improvement relates to the adaptation of the strings to the bridge of the piano, in order to relieve the said bridge and the sounding-board from downward strain or pressure of the strings, such as usually results and is liable to bend down the sounding-board more or less when a string after crossing the bridge is inclined from thence to the hitch-pin, and the part so inclined makes an obtuse angle with the part of the string that is extended from the bridge to head-block, in which case the string on being strained by its straining pin or pins tends to push downward the bridge and the soundingboard on which it may rest.

In carrying out my invention I so arrange the intermediate or bridge bearings of the strings that all those portions of the strings that extend from such bearings to the string bearing of the head-block shall be in one plane, and the portions of the strings between the said intermediate bearings and the hitch-pins shall extend through their agraffes at obtuse angles to such plane in a manner to cause one half the number to go upward through and the other half downward through such agraffes, and thence to the hitch-pins. From this it will be seen not only that the string portions to be struck by the hammers of the action are level and in one plane, but that of the portions of the strings extending from the agraffes to the hitch-pins half such portions will incline downward to and the other half upward to their hitch-pins, whereby the downward strain or pressure of half the strings on the bridge will be counteracted by the upward strain or press ure of the remainder of the strings with respect to such bridge.

The drawings represent the strings as going through holes in metallic agrafies H H projecting upward from the bridge 0.

In such drawings, A denotes the string or strings of one agraffe, H, and B that or those of the other agraffe, H, of the bridge Gfroln which such agraffes extend. The head-block is shown at D, the frame at F, and the straining-pins at G. The auxiliary agraffes, through which the strings pass from the bearings on the head-block to the straining-pins, are represented at I.

In all the agraffes H and H of the bridge 0 the string-holes are to be arranged so that the parts of the strings that extend to such agraffes from the string-bearing of the block D shall be level or in one plane with each other. The string hole orholes of each agraffe H in going through such agrafie incline downward, while the string hole or holes of each agraffe H in going through it incline in a like degree upward. Consequently, as each agraffe H is next to an agraffe H, the string or strings of each agraffe H in their passage to the hitch pin or pins will incline upward, while the string or strings of each agraffe H will incline in a like degree downward to the hitch pin or pins, such being as represented in Fig. 2.

Instead of the agrai'fes H and H, a metallic bar may be substituted and provided with holes to receive the strings, such holes, where opening out of the side of the bar that may be next the straining-pin, being 011 a level or in one plane, and each hole in going through the barlbeing inclined in a manner to cause one half the number of the holes to incline downward and the other half upward in a like degree.

I would remark that I do not claim in a piano the combination, withasounding-board, the bridge thereof, and the agraffes of such bridge, of a hitch-pin block provided with terraces for supporting the hitch-pins at different levels above the sounding-board, one of the said terraces being situated above and the other below the level of the surface of the sounding-board bridge, and all being as represented in the United States Patent No. 212,029, dated February 4, 1879, there being between such and my invention an important difference or differences, wherebyI am enabled to dispense entirely with a hitch-pin block terraced as mentioned, and in so doing avoid its disadvantages.

What I claim in a piano is' 1. The string-bearing holes at the bridge or gitudinally thereof in one line with each other, and having part of their string-bearing holes inclining in a direction opposite to that in which the rest incline, and all of them in one plane or straight line at their ends nextthe bearing-block, the same being to cause all the strings where between the bearing-block and the agrai'les to be in one plane, and part of the strings to incline in their bearing-holes of such agralfes in a direction opposite to that in which the rest incline in their bearing-holes, and part of the strings where between the agraffes and the hitch-pins to incline upward and the remainder downward, all being substantially as set forth.

GEORGE COOK. XVitnesses:

R. H. EDDY, E. B. PRATT.

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