EP2707869A1

EP2707869A1 - Pianoforte instrument, in particular a piano, with a housing on bearing points

Info

Publication number: EP2707869A1
Application number: EP12721280.1A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Hannes SCHIMMEL-VOGEL
Original assignee: VIOGA GmbH
Current assignee: Schimmel Verwaltung GmbH
Priority date: 2011-05-12
Filing date: 2012-05-14
Publication date: 2014-03-19
Also published as: CN103620670A; CN109616084A; US9552798B2; WO2012152946A1; DE102011101753A1; US20140165815A1

Abstract

A pianoforte instrument, in particular a piano (10), has a base (12). Several bearings (21) serve to support the pianoforte instrument on a floor (20). A height adjuster (32) is also provided, which permits a height adjustment of the slide element (31) relative to the base (12) and/or to a console. A device (30) that facilitates transport is preferably provided on each of the bearings (21). The device (30) that facilitates transport has a slide element (31), which permits sliding on the floor (20).

Description

Pianoforte instrument, especially a piano, with a housing on

support points

The invention relates to a pianoforte instrument, in particular a piano, with a pedestal and with several supports for placing on a floor.

Pianoforte instruments, in particular pianos, in addition to the primary sound elements such as the keyboard, the strings and the soundboard soundboard also have a housing with subframe and top frame, in which these elements are arranged or to which they are attached.

In particular, in pianos, such a housing with sub-frame and upper frame, in which the soundboard and the strings are arranged, rests on a pedestal with a skirting board. Attached to the upper frame is the keyboard with a chair bottom, a lock strip and a key flap. The keyboard must be operable by the operator. It therefore protrudes forward from the body or subframe. Underneath the keyboard in front of the subframe is a free space in which the pianist's knees and lower legs are located while the piano is playing, while the pianist's hands also move on and above the keys of the keyboard during piano playing.

The keyboard is additionally supported on the side by the pianist. For this purpose, consoles are provided, which are supported on a foot block. The foot pads are connected to the skirting board.

One aspect of pianoforte instruments that has received too little attention is the problem caused by an uneven surface. For wings, this aspect is solved by the fact that the wing stands on three supports and thus allows a three-point bearing, which is stable even on uneven ground. A similar solution is proposed, for example, in US 2009/0120264 A1, which describes a piano-like electronic musical instrument, in which consciously next to two front legs facing away from the player third, back leg is provided in turn to create a stable three-point storage.

Similar thoughts are, however, even from older documents, such as the US-PS 2, 486, 354 bekan nt, where for r Solution n the stability and the compensation of uneven floors, the entire piano is built on a plate-like base, which in turn with three supports on the ground.

In the case of pianos and similar pianoforte instruments, which are predominantly four support points on the floor, in practice it is usually the case that on uneven ground makeshift washers are placed under one of the supports in order to prevent at least a tipping of the piano.

This problem is all the more annoying when the piano is to be placed in changing locations or even a Postionsveränderung be made within a room or a hall, with the inevitable existing slight differences in the bumps a once found compensation for a piano at the other site Of course it does not fit and needs to be re-selected and adjusted.

To make matters worse, that it does not or not only important to prevent a tipping of the piano with a closer expert consideration of the problem. It should be remembered that in a piano there are quite considerable forces, which are caused not only by the weight of the components, but also by the fact that they are repeated in the next step e exert forces on the clamping points and the soundboard. The tensile forces acting through the string reference in the instrument can be around 20 tons. An uneven load on the various bearing points is transmitted accordingly to the strings and leads there to a sound change. This is an effect that is of course undesirable in a pianoforte instrument. This effect occurs even if the piano is still without the so-called tilting, but the supports are loaded very differently.

The object of the invention, in contrast, is to propose a generic pianoforte instrument which creates a possibility of achieving an improved vocal integrity in spite of unevenness in the floor, without complex and complicated constructions, for example with complete floor panels and an artificial three-ply mounting, such as to proceed in the US-PS 2,486,354.

This object is achieved by means of the invention in a generic pianoforte instrument in that two of the supports are equipped with a respective height adjustment mechanism, and that the height adjustment device is a height adjustment of the support relative to the base and / or to a console allows.

This option achieves a significant improvement in the vocal range of a piano instrument. It is a four-point bearing in which two out of four support points are height adjustable. As a result, it is also possible here to compensate for unevenness in the substrate, specifically by actively adjusting and / or adjusting the support points. However, the invention goes beyond the simple compensation of unevenness and thus the avoidance of a kippelnden instrument clearly.

It is namely possible to achieve a solid Auflagerung on all four supports for tuning the Pianoforte instrument and thus errors by to take into account the high weight of a piano and the extreme tensile forces that act on the instrument due to the string reference. If one of the four supporting points were not loaded, the sounding body would first deform to a certain limit, without the instrument starting to wobble. Through this mentioned deformation, the geometries in the instrument and thus also the tensile forces in the string would move. In the case of the sound strings of a pianoforte instrument, the acting tensile force is also proportional to the pitch, with the result that an unwanted change in these tensile forces also results in an unwanted change in pitch.

However, the height adjustment according to the invention made possible by two supports makes it possible to reliably set a uniform load of all four supports. The egg lstel lability of two supports, independently, also allows manual adjustment, which is vornehmbar without much effort. The user can feel very clearly whether the support he has just set is now without load or with load or if it possibly has no contact with the ground, which would automatically cause a tipping.

It is particularly advantageous if the two front, a Tatstatur facing supports are each equipped with a height adjustment device. Preferably, this adjustability is provided at one or both support points forming the front points seen by the player. This has the advantage that also the readjustment can be done where the player has access, which is particularly important if he wants to move the piano, for example, to a lecture just to another point of a room and of course interested in it is that just after this move a then possibly changed ground position can also be compensated directly by himself. It is also particularly preferred if a transport facilitating device is provided on each of the supports, and that the transport facilitating device each having a sliding member which allows sliding on the floor.

Occasionally it is necessary to move, transport or move pianos. With Fußklötzen this is difficult, since such rigid, firmly screwed blocks made of wood or plastic or hardly glide on the ground and sometimes can leave very ugly and unwanted scratches there.

Especially the heavy weight of pianos makes transport difficult. Nevertheless, a piano must also be able to be moved within an apartment or inside event halls. An optimal installation point must be found and an apartment is also occasionally redecorated so that a piano may be placed at the other end of the living room.

Under the base and connected to this Fußklötzen are therefore often one, a total of four rollers attached. These roles are used to move and transport the piano. Much effort has already been invested in these roles to make them as smooth as possible. Conventionally, brass rollers are usually provided for this purpose. The piano rests on a total of four support points and at each of these support points is conventionally provided such a brass roller.

The disadvantage is, inter alia, that the pianos are relatively rarely transported on these brass rollers, which tends to make these brass rollers stiff. The high weight per surface also means that it always comes back to scratches and damage when pianos are actually moved on these roles about a parquet floor. Even visually, brass rollers do not meet with undivided approval at the supporting points of a piano.

Thus, in this preferred embodiment of the invention, a piano instrument is not only more vocalized than conventional piano instruments, but is also endowed with a better opportunity for occasional transportation within living spaces or venues. The brass rollers used exclusively in the prior art are completely eliminated in this preferred embodiment. This is very unusual for a person skilled in the art, since, on the basis of his experience, wheels and wheels are considered the means of choice for moving comparatively heavy objects. A renunciation of this proven and popular remedy seems anachronistic. This is even more so as the person skilled in the art knows that the wooden or plastic foot blocks conventionally used without the rollers have been quite unsuitable for moving or transporting the piano. If one had tried to "slide" a piano on such a foot block, damage to the floor covering would have been very likely.

It should be noted, however, that when using rollers, the area over which the entire weight of the piano is removed into the floor is ultimately unwound only over four relatively thin and short line lengths, namely the bearing lines of the four brass rollers or brass rollers on the floor at the four points of support. When using conventional dimensions, so it is four short stretches of no more than two centimeters in length, the bearing surface already created by the impressions of these brass rollers in the underlying ground surface and only a few millimeters wide.

This surface does not change by rolling the brass rollers on the floor and thus the forces are introduced into the floor via constantly other parts of the lateral surface of the respective brass rollers. The area available in this embodiment is clearly larger. There is always the area of four elements also available, namely four sliding elements, one on each support. The baseplate also has approximately the same longitudinal dimension, but a significantly wider and, for example, each one or two centimeters wider than the measuring angle.

This has the consequence that the pressure on the base, for example, in a parquet floor, is significantly reduced at each support point and thus damage can be avoided.

In this embodiment, quite a number of advantages are achieved. By completely eliminating the rollers and replacing them with sliding elements, it is possible to avoid the scars that commonly occur in parquet floors or other floors with each transport of a piano.

In addition, conventionally created by the hanging at a short distance above the floor of the fourth role the risk that the vibrations of the strings and the sound board so transferred to this role, that it can lead to easy clashing vibrations of the roll against the floor. These noises are hardly localized for a non-proficient and non-proficient private user, but they can lead to a deterioration of the sound, especially if it is an already demanding playing private users.

These problems are inventively avoided. The fact that two of the four support points are provided with a height adjustment, can be compensated for any bumps overall. This ensures that the weight of the Pianoforte instrument is routed evenly over all four support points into the base, ie into the floor or another contact area. Preferably, this can be done by the fact that the piano is equipped with two identical sliding elements, which may consist in particular of a base plate and a threaded bolt. As a threaded bolt, a bolt M 12 has proven itself in tests.

The two rear support points seen from the player are also equipped with sliding elements, but these are not necessarily equipped adjustable. In principle, a suitably equipped support pile would be sufficient for adjustability; a use of particular identical adjustable sliding elements but in addition to the above already explained additionally has the advantage of allowing the player to access directly from him as not just estimated page, without having to try hard. In addition, this gives a visual balance between left and right.

Preferably, the sliding elements are provided with a possibility of attack for a hexagonal key. This is easy for non-technicians to understand, and yet also suitable, despite the relatively high weight loads of a piano, without any difficulty, to provide an adjustment capability for extending and retracting.

This adjustment option ensures that the weight can be distributed evenly over all four support points and that the piano's sound body remains dimensionally stable.

Particularly preferably, the contact surface is covered with a lubricious and abrasion-resistant plastic. In tests, the material has proven particularly useful. Among other things, it is offered under the trade name "Delrin." On the one hand, the displacement and mobility of the piano is particularly well supported, without causing scratches in the floor of a parquet floor, on the other hand, the forces are reduced, which move the Pianos are required, and finally it is also avoided that there are signs of abrasion on the floor or the sliding elements wear too quickly. As mentioned, the increased footprint through the sliders causes significantly less punctual pressure to be applied to the floor than is conventionally the case with the use of rollers. The permanent static pressure load on the floor by a piano will cause by the use of the sliding elements according to the invention significantly less damage, for example by the impressions of the uppermost parts of the floor.

It is also not insignificant that visually a slider or sliding element as the lower end of an elegant console forms a much more harmonious conclusion than can be the case by a conventional brass roller. Brass rollers always show the observer clearly what their technical purpose is and thus disturb the clear aesthetic overall impression.

The height adjustment of the support points, which is so sensible for the vocal posture of the pianoforte instruments, can also be made significantly more user-friendly by the use of sliding elements instead of the conventionally used rollers. This is supported by the geometry of the sliding elements. A sliding element can, as long as it is depressurized, manually adjusted by turning in height.

In a movement situation, the slider must not be able to move, but remains at its height and thus slides as a solid body on the ground or on the underlying surface. On the other hand, a roller conventionally provided at this point has two free rotation axes, namely a rotation axis concentric to the roller rolling surface and a further rotation axis orthogonal to the former. A roller with a threaded shaft analogous to that of a sliding element can not be adjusted in height by a rotation by hand. Such a non-pressurized roller would merely rotate about its free axis in an attempt, but without changing the relative height to the pedestal or piano body. However, in order to be able to effect a height adjustment here, tools would always be required in this case. In this respect, therefore, an advantage arises in a combination sliding element with a height adjustment.

The invention is explained in more detail below with reference to a sketch. Show it:

Figure 1 is a schematic overall view of an inventive

Embodiment of a piano;

Figure 2 is a perspective view of a detail of Figure 1; and

3 shows a schematic section through the detail of Figure 2.

In the figure 1 you can see a piano 10 with a keyboard 1 1 and a body with upper frame, subframe and base 12, in which there are, among other things, the soundboard and the strings, which are not visible in the illustration.

The piano 10 rests on an uneven floor 20 and stands on it with four feet or supports 21. One can imagine that only three of the feet remove the entire weight of the piano 10 into the floor 20, while the fourth foot 21 and the fourth support ultimately hangs just above the floor 20 without pressure.

Due to the considerable weight of the piano 20, this leads to the fact that, contrary to FIG. 1, the piano 10 slightly warps, which is disadvantageous in terms of sound.

This problem is exacerbated when the piano 10 is to be transported and thus the feet or supports 21 are pulled over the floor 20. In this case, as conventionally equipped with brass rollers, they scratch over the floor and have problems in removing the weight into the floor 20.

In accordance with the invention, therefore, the feet 20 of the two supports 21 are instead equipped with other shapes of support elements 30. Each of these support elements 30 is equipped with a sliding element 31. Two These support elements 30 are additionally equipped with a height adjustment device 32.

A corresponding section in FIG. 2 can be seen, in which the area of a foot 21 with a support element 30 can be seen enlarged. It can be seen that the support element 30 has a sliding element 31 as well as, for example, a height adjustment device 32, with the aid of which the sliding element 31 can be moved upwards and downwards. In addition, the sliding member 31 is covered with a layer which is particularly low friction and abrasion resistant. Here, polyoxymethylene is preferred as the material.

The height adjustment device 32 has a threaded bolt 33 which can be used by means of an adjusting nut 34 for height adjustment of the support element 30 relative to the base 12.

FIG. 3 shows the support element 30 with the sliding element 31 and the height adjustment device 32 in section.

The figures do not show that the keyboard 1 1 is additionally supported by brackets (not shown). The consoles protrude to the left and right of the user from the keyboard to the bottom. These consoles can be provided on their underside with supports, in which case the drawn in Figure 1 feet 21 are replaced by these supports 21 under the consoles. The brackets can be connected to the base 12 by a skirting board or a Fußklotz. LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

10 piano

1 1 keyboard

12 sockets

20 floor

21 supports 30 facilitation of transport

31 sliding element

32 height adjustment device

33 threaded bolts

34 adjusting nut

Claims

claims

Pianoforte instrument, especially piano (10),

with a base (12) and

with four supports (21) for placement on a floor (20),

characterized,

that two of the supports (21) are each equipped with a height adjustment device (32), and

in that the height adjustment device (32) makes it possible to adjust the height of the support (21) relative to the base (12) and / or to a bracket.

Pianoforte instrument according to claim 1,

characterized,

in that the two front supports (21) facing a keyboard (1 1) are each equipped with a height adjustment device (32).

Pianoforte instrument according to claim 1 or 2,

characterized,

that a transport facilitating device (30) is provided on each of the supports (21), and

that the inertia-facilitating device (30) each has a sliding element (31) which allows it to slide on the floor (20).

Pianoforte instrument according to claim 3,

characterized,

in that the sliding element (31) is provided with a layer of polyoxymethylene. Pianoforte instrument according to one of the preceding claims,

characterized,

in that the height adjustment device (32) has a threaded bolt (33) and an adjusting nut (34).