After all of the heavy solenoid vs. pneumatic stuff, I thought I would
pose a more SERIOUS problem to the group.

I know two installers who are twin brothers:  Dick Leonard here in San
Fransisco, and Grant Leonard who lives near one of those really large
lakes somewhere east of California.  When I last visited Dick, he told me
about a bet Grant made 30 years ago.  He bet someone that if he dumped a
junker upright piano into the lake, it would float.  (I have to admit
that I would probably have voted sink.)

The bet was taken and, I am told, the piano swum (it didn't sink).  Later
it was towed ashore, disassembled, and the harp is still being used as a
boat anchor.  (Or maybe a car anchor - Grant does own a working
Amphicar.)

Dick and I decided to try and figure out how safe a bet this was.  Dick
had a couple of old college reference books and we tried to work this
out.  He thought an upright that weighted 500 pounds was about 250 pounds
for the harp and 250 pounds for the (mostly wood) remainder.

First question:  Is this weight ratio about correct?

Now our problem was that one reference book had metal tables and the
other had woods.  One showed density and the other referenced pounds per
cubic centimeter.  The other problem was that, although each of us had
some/alot of college, we were not really sure about how to calculate the
problem.

After about 2 hours, we thought we had figured out that Grant's bet was
pretty safe if the piano was not made from some really dense wood.  Put
the emphasis on "we thought".

Now, today I was relating this story to a friend and we decided to look
up some numbers in my old "Handbook of Chemistry & Physics".  The numbers
we found looked like a sure piano sinker.  However, I couldn't really
remember the reasoning that Dick and I used a few months ago when we
thought Grant had a safe bet.

Numbers from my reference are all in grams per cubic cm.

  Water  = 1 gram / cubic cm
  Cast iron = 7.5 gram / cubic cm
  Oak (average) = 0.7 gram / cubic cm
  Spruce (average) = 0.4 gram / cubic cm

Second question:  How should one really figure this problem out?

Will Dahlgren

P.S.  This is really is a true story ...and... I promise not to dump any
pianos (especially pneumatic player types) in a lake to test this out.

 [ But, Will, you didn't say: is it a vertical or a grand??!!  -- Robbie