[CAUT] Flight of Broken Bass String

[Andrew Anderson]

Guy Nichols told me about that when I was living near him.  He told 
that is was great entertainment to take a chisel and de-string old 
pianos and see how for they would shoot.  He did warn that certain 
precautions were necessary (safety glasses, welders gloves).  His 
reported feats drove home how seriously dangerous a bass string can 
be.  If someone wanted a piano tuned fifty cents sharp I would plan 
on binding a few truck straps across the rim.  I tune with the lid 
open because of how I like to orient the hammer.

Andrew Anderson

At 08:45 PM 3/25/2006, you wrote:
>At 05:38 PM 3/25/2006 -0800, Jim wrote:
>>"BANG-swish-SLAM!!.  Just like that.
>
>I've never had it happen, but I've heard of it.
>
>Picturing how it gets out of the piano, supposing it
>breaks at the agraffe, ... does the broken end curl
>over the tail of the case, ripping the loop off the
>hitch pin, before heading for points unknown? That is,
>does it rotate, held by the loop? I always imagined it
>flying across the room loop first, but how could it?
>
>Can anyone confirm? Broken end first, ready to impale
>whatever gets in its way?
>
>Susan
>