Paul, What Ed said; too much breakage and I restring. Usually the lower sizes (below 16.5 or so) don’t break as much, but above that they do. You’ll also notice they are harder to keep in tune, or at least that the way it seems. The wire seems dead or something. But if I start breaking 2 – 3 strings a week for several weeks I consider restringing. Oh, and that’s after taking into consideration hammer shape, age of wire, importance of piano, and how to fit it into a schedule, etc. You’re right about being able to dress the V-bar, so sometimes we take all strings off of one section, dress the V-bar, etc. I once taught a class called “the 3 day makeover”. With students to help we restring, (all) dress friction points, new bridge pins, new hammers, and a few misc things, then the piano is back in action in three days. Granted we sometimes have two people in shifts working on it. From my records I’d say it takes about 50 hours. We try to do this in the summer break, or the 3 weeks during Christmas break. Best, Jim <<<<Back to Jim: You say you restring just the upper two sections more often? When do you make the call on this? I can think of several that might deserve this. I just veer away from not doing the whole thing unless really necessary. What criteria do you use for this type of job? It's true that just the upper sections suck while the middle and bass are fairly decent on practice rooms and such. This piano will probably deserve to get the whole string deal if I go forth. Feed me Feed me!! Paul >>>> From: Jim Busby <jim_busby at byu.edu> To: "caut at ptg.org" <caut at ptg.org> Date: 08/03/2010 12:40 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] When to restring... ________________________________ Hi Paul, I’m interested in what people say here… It certainly depends on a lot of factors, but we restring when strings start breaking a lot, and/or there is other work needed anyway. In Utah rust is not an issue, but in teaching studios at about 7 years or so it seems strings start popping. We sometimes do the upper two sections only. At about 15 years or so (on our studio Bs) they all seem to need new bass and plain wire. Now, that’s here in dry Utah, with pianos that are played a LOT! Most S&S don’t need new tuning pins until the second restringing. It’s a pain, but we treat the first restringing like normal string break replacements (i.e. don’t take the pin out) We have 7 Ms from 1964 and torque is still very good. The block will tell you… On a full restring we replace bridge pins, but on partial we put one drop of CA. Works for us. (Eliminates most false beats) We never replace agraffes, mainly because we refurbish them like Paul Revenko-Jones does. WAY better than new ones because new ones aren’t shaped correctly either. Waste of time to just replace them. That’s some of what we do here. About 4-5 pianos per years. Make students do it <G>. Best, Jim Busby BYU From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul T Williams Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 10:21 AM To: CAUTlist Subject: [CAUT] When to restring... Hi all, When do you all decide when to restring a grand? I have now in the shop a S&S M from the 60's from one of our classrooms. Besides an action overhaul with new hammers, shanks and flanges, I'm considering restringing. It is original (I think) with lots of corrosion on the plain wires. The bass isn't the worst I've heard, but a new set of strings there is probably a good call. I haven't yet checked the bridge pins, but it's riddled with false beats throughout, so I'm thinking of loose bridge pins and poor termination points. The downbearing is fine and the board and pinblock are fine as well....for it's age and vintage. Typically, when I restring, I replace bridge pins as well as agraffes and tuning pins. Do you go this far? not as much? farther? I'm not in any hurry on this one as I put a "loaner" grand in the classroom for fall semester. Thanks for any input. Best, Paul T. Williams RPT Univ. of Nebraska Lincoln, NE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100803/4ec8fb15/attachment.htm>
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