Hi all,  Well I have to say that I've read many, if not all of the
reports concerning expression box set up and <wow, wow, wow>!  What a
lot of info and theory and conjecture, and poor old Julian, whom I've
never seen or spoken to as far as I know, did get his knuckles rapped.

But really, at the end of the day, who the hell cares?  I'll tell you,
very few.  There are a handful of fanatical enthusiasts, and I can just
see them now huddled together in a room with a Duo-Art grand and one of
them nervously saying to the others, "Wasn't that power 10 just then?
COR-Blimey!"

Then we have a number of restorers who care and certainly they have to
be convincing or at lest try to be, after all they are the ones keeping
these instruments alive.  And what about those collectors?  They may
well care, but financial constraints get the better of them and the
saga, "As long as it sounds reasonably okay it will do," comes into
play.  And as for private owners and Joe Public :- need I go on?

We have a large number of people who visit the collection where I'm
based [Ashorne Hall], and I watch them stand in awe and amazement of
our Model B Ampico grand.   It's not because of the beautiful way it
performs, but because "The bloody keys go up and down!", followed by,
"It's got an electric motor -- you don't have to pedal it like the one
we had at home when I was a child."

"Sustaining pedal?  Una-corda?  Oh, the loud and soft pedal."  And
as for sostenuto, forget it!  I've given up explaining that one:
"Press the middle pedal and the butler serves tea."

Most of these people can't tell if it's out-of-tune, let alone how good
the expression is.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the Aeolian invention of the Duo-Art
was and still is devilishly clever; sadly, few are able to appreciate,
let alone understand, it's finer points.  As for setting it up, well,
as far as I'm concerned this is what I do:

I aim to achieve a range of vacuum steps from around 6" wg (water
gauge) to 30" wg Accomp and a range of slightly higher settings for
Theme.  If I can get the zero intensity lower than 6" then better still
-- the result is usually quite pleasing although no two players are the
same and some additional tweaking is often required.  If this is wrong
I couldn't care less after 30 years of restoration and a string of
satisfied customers who, let's face it, would be quite happy with only
8 degrees of touch.  I must be doing something right.

I was also surprised to read of Duo-Arts running as high as 40" to
50" wg. I've found with these higher settings there's a tendency for
the roll to slow or even stall, so that when that chord finally hoves
into view the player leaps off the floor.  Such settings would require
a government warning: "Danger! Risk of implosion!"

Springs of identical size and wire thickness can give different tension
readings.  The trick is in the winding of them: twist the wire as you
turn the coil and you introduce a pre-tension in the spring.  At this
point I can feel a whole load of theory coming on: Where are you,
Mr Hook?

It's a good thing we don't include phone numbers with these postings,
my wires would be red hot!

Paul Camps