replacing plain wire

[Fred Sturm]

Wim,
	For my part, restringing plain wire is, as pointed out by Mark Cramer,
mostly to deal with termination and rendering problems, not due to
defects in the wire. Resurfacing the capo to eliminate little zingy bits
of metal and rust, and to lubricate; replacing bridge pins (not just
making them firm in the bridge) to get good round termination from them;
resurfacing the bridge to make it flat; renotching if necessary;
replacing understring felt if it has rust on it. 
	If the wire itself is rusty, it may be causing a rendering problem. But
in concert grand situations, restringing is mostly to improve tonal
characteristics by improving termination characteristics, for the most
part. I guess excess string breakage might also be an indicator - which,
btw,  I believe to be mostly due to overstressing due to constant
tuning/pounding. So treble wire on concert grands in constant use really
takes a beating.
	I usually only restring the top two sections, where the capo is. And
retain the original tuning pins at least a couple times (unless they are
actually loose, which hasn't happened).
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico

Wimblees@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 11/7/01 11:43:15 AM Central Standard Time,
> cramer@BrandonU.CA writes:
> 
>      It was then a simple matter to demonstrate false beats, show
>      a segment of broken string, and point out several splices,
>      to the 'peace of mind' of our Dean (and myself), that
>      re-stringing was overdue.  
> 
>      BTW, the false beats were actually caused by loose
>      bridge-pins, barely "finger-tight," from F#4 (gauge change)
>      to C8.
> 
>      Although I believe you can and will discern a difference
>      between new and older string Wim, the greatest benefits seem
>      to come from servicing all bearing and termination points at
>      the time of a re-stringing.
> 
>      best regards,
>      Mark Cramer,
>      Brandon University     
> 
>           -----Original Message-----
>           From
> 
> Mark
> 
> Thank you for this information. But based on the above, it would seem
> that the original reason, false beats, wase not the result of poor
> wire, but loose bridge pins. In other words, if you had tapped down
> the bridge pins, or at most, removed them, (and only loosened the
> strings to get at the pins), and epoxied them in place, you would not
> have had to restring the piano. I agree that servicing all bearing
> points is easier with the strings removed. But the big question still
> remains, is there a reason  to restring the whole piano? Unless
> someone else can come up with another valid reason, I am still not
> convinced that restringing is something that needs to be done, other
> than for the obvious reasons, like replacing a pin block, even after
> 100 years.
> 
> Wim