Tuning stability

[Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel)]

While on this subject...Pianotek has re-introduced the Acousticraft
Strate-Mate (sic) and I highly recommend it for anyone doing this type of
restringing work. Last week during spring break I restrung the 2 capo
sections of one of our Steinway Bs which is onstage one of our small recital
halls and as of today I feel it is stable enough to be used in recital. I do
all the positive bends that Fred mentions and concur with his experience as
to much faster stabilization. The Strate-Mate takes it one step further in
stretching the strings as well as leveling and straightening the "slow bend"
over the capo bar. I over pulled 50 cents on the first chipping, Strate-
Mated it, used the pitch-raise mode on the Cybertuner on the second pull and
it is holding very well at pitch now after one fine-tune pass. The other
benefit is in the leveling...I gang-filed the (new) hammers and didn't have
to do any extra mating on even one hammer. They were all "spot on" as some
say. This has never happened for me before and says a lot for carefully
traveling shanks before installing hammers and then checking them again
after they are on. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric Wolfley
Head Piano Technician
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Fred Sturm [mailto:fssturm@unm.edu] 
Sent:	Wednesday, March 31, 2004 2:45 PM
To:	College and University Technicians
Subject:	RE: Tuning stability

--On Monday, March 29, 2004 11:09 PM +0200 Isaac OLEG <oleg-i@noos.fr> 
wrote:

> Fred, I believe that if you warm the string rubbing them with a piece
> of wood , you'll get a very fast stabilisation, and you can avoid to
> bend them, bend can take place later I guess, is not it better?

Isaac,
	My experience tells me that I should make the positive bends in the
wire 
soon after installing it for two reasons:
	First, this will stabilize pitch faster. My sense is that the
process of 
the wire "making the bends itself" over time is a very large proportion of 
the cause for pitch drop of new wire. On new pianos from the factory, for 
instance, I find that heavy pounding can drop pitch by 50 cents or more. 
Not true of pianos I have restrung and made those positive bends. I 
interpret that to mean that the pounding is largely helping to create those 
bends.
	Second, the tone becomes much clearer, with a less "fuzzy" pitch.
This 
difference is pretty readily apparent. Pull to pitch without making bends 
and listen. Make bends and pull to pitch, and listen.
	I do like to make sure pitch is as close to standard as possible
when 
making the bends. Hence, 25 cents sharp before making the bends from bridge 
to hitch pin. Making the bends lowers pitch by 25 cents or a bit more. So I 
pull sharp again before making the front bends, which leaves the string 
close to pitch.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico





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