[CAUT] Flight of Broken Bass String

[Jeff Olson]

Thanks, everyone, for your enlightening replies -- especially Jim 
for those church incidents (shades of The Exorcist:-).

Okay, I confess, you guys *almost* got me.  But come on -- bass 
strings sailing through the air like writhing copper-plated 
anacondas, smashing holes in walls, ripping through 
doors...sounds like outtakes from a Stephen King movie.  I mean, 
next thing you'll be telling me a focused beam of light can cut 
through steel, or that bees really can communicate the location 
of honey through dance!  Give me a break! ;-)

But seriously, now I shudder when I think of all the curious boys 
and girls leaning over the end of a grand, peering down at the 
strings as I performed a pitch raise, with me encouraging them: 
"Yes, yes, that's okay, you can't hurt anything!  Go ahead and 
take a closer look at those bass strings.  Aren't they pretty?"

I had another thought when reading these accounts of 
string-escapees: What liability would we have for damage or 
injury caused by them?  I'm fairly sure most of us would agree 
that we aren't responsible for a string breaking in the course of 
a tuning -- at least, I hope we agree -- but I can't imagine a 
customer accepting "Oh, sorry, about knocking out little Johnny's 
eyes" or "You say that was a one-of-a-kind Renoir?  Not anymore!"

I know that from now on I'll be tuning grands with their lids 
firmly down (I guess I should count myself lucky for not having 
destroyed anyone or anything thus far).

I'm also wondering if the larger grands would have more 
"explosive" potential when it comes to bass string breakage.  I 
would assume so.

Best,

Jeff O.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Ellis" <claviers at nxs.net>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 8:03 AM
Subject: [CAUT] Re. Flight of Broken Bass String


> Jim Harvey is correct about making sure no one is in the line 
> of fire in
> case a bass string breaks and becomes a projectile.  Jeff Olson 
> doubts that
> a broken bass string will fly out of the piano.  Jeff, many 
> years ago I
> doubted that a person could bang on a piano key hard enough and 
> long enough
> to break a steel string, but I learned better.  Since then, I 
> have replaced
> a bunch of them, and it's the same scenario every time.  I can 
> predict when
> and where it's going to happen.  I have also had broken bass 
> strings fly.
> On one occasion, I was tuning an old Steinway L in a fairly 
> large church.
> The piano was all the way over on one side of the sanctuary.  A 
> bass string
> broke, flew out of the piano, over a bunch of pews, and hit the 
> wall on the
> opposite side of the sanctuary.  "BANG-swish-SLAM!!.  Just like 
> that.
> Fortunately, it hit the wall, and not one of the stained glass 
> windows.  On
> another occasion during a revival at a rural church, a bass 
> string of a
> small imported grand broke, flew half the length of the 
> sanctuary, and hit
> the end of a pew next to the center Aisle.  It can and does 
> happen.  I
> never let anyone stand or sit behind a grand piano when I'm 
> tuning it.
>
> Jim Ellis
>
>