Twisting & schraffed bass strings

[RndyPotter@aol.com]

Richard Boyington said:

>At our last chapter meeting, the pres. noticed my bass stringing job on an
>"O" Steinway. He asked how many turns I had put on these strings. I told him
>that I was of the school of thought to abstain from twisting new bass
>strings. He posed the question during when the meeting started: "Should we
>twist new bass strings?" The ones that commented indicated a half twist for
>the most part. A Baldwin factory tech inserted that all their bass strings
>were twisted in the factory.

While I can believe that "a Baldwin factory tech inserted that all their bass
strings were twisted in the factory", . . .
When I was in the Baldwin factory last, they were NOT twisting the bass
strings.
I do not know how they are stringing, now, but at the time, they were taking
the bass string, putting it on the hitch pin, poking it through the hole in
the pin and then the hand-held, balance and pulley weighted, pneumatic device
shoved the pin into the hole and twisted the pin at the same time, putting
about 2-1/2 turns on the pin as it did so. Note: While this twisted the PIN,
it did not twist the STRING - not in the sense you and I are talking about.
As you and I know, in order to twist the bass string during installation, you
need to hook the loop on the hitch pin, then insert the wire into the pin,
wind the string onto the pin and turn the pin over (around, whatever you call
it where you live), then insert the pin into the hole and pound it in with a
sledge hammer - like we do in our shops when we restring.
But they don't do it that way in most factories. None of them that I have
seen (I have not been to them all, just Baldwin, Kimball, Steinway, Yamaha,
Kemble, Egtved, Hamburg Steinway, Schimmel, Grotrian-Steinweg, Bechstein,
Bluthner, Petrof and Bosendorfer) do it to verticals (I could have missed
something, somewhere, or they could have changed what they do after I left),
and few do it grands, anymore. Most use pheumatic tools to shove in the pin
while they are tuning the string - - - and this is NOT twisting the bass
string.

And, when I loosen the tension on an old piano, enough to cut the wire, does
it unwrap? No.
And, when I loosen the tension on an old piano, enough to pull the loop off
the hitch pin? No. At least, not unless you consider its rolling over about
1/16th of an inch, and laying there just slightly off kilter, is a "twist" in
the bass string.

So, I don't twist bass strings when installing new ones, because what I was
told ("we do this because this is what the factories did when the pianos were
made") turned out to be not correct in most cases.

But, if you still want to do it, you might be interested to know just what it
does to the sound - as Eric Leatha, tunrboy@aol.com - inquired. It changes
the placement of the upper partials, as you might expect it would do, since
it twists the string and puts a different kind of torsion, or torque, or
whatever it is, on it. Ted Sambell, head technician at the Banff Center in
Banff, Alberta, demonstrated during a technical session in this shop at a
Pacific Northwest Regional Conference a few years back.
If you want to test this yourself, install a string without twists, then
measure and record all the upper partials using a SAT. Then loosen it, give
it a full twist, then measure and record all the upper partials again, using
the SAT.
Then you will hear why installing one new string with twists (as I was taught
was correct), usually resulted in its not matching up with the other pair -
even when the new one was made to the correct dimensions.
But when installing a new string, and NOT twisting it, I found that most of
the time it will make a good match to the original pair, and the second
(unbroken) string can be left in the piano. (Yes, I always order a matched
pair to be made, so I have a match if I need it. But if the new string is a
good match to the original, I can leave the original in, and know I will get
a better tonal match. So I leave it if I can.)

Someone said they believe that twisting new bass strings "brightens" them up,
and perhaps it does. I have not noticed a "brighter" tone in a new twisted
string, as opposed to a new string I installed without twisting it - but
someone else might hear what I can't, so it could be true.

Paul Dempsey asked about *schraffed*, or "rock core" strings, which Mapes
does and, to the best of my knowledge, no one else in the States is doing. I
believe this process really adds a depth of tone to the strings, from
experience - one which I am willing to pay for. I will not have it done when
ordering replacements for single broken strings, but always order it when
having a new set made.

Someone else asked what *schraffed* strings are. First they make a loop in
the wire, place it over the hook on one end of the lathe, secure the lead end
and take a rock-like thing, which sort of looks like a pair of rock
castinettes (spelling? - help Steve Brady) and run it up and down the string
about two times. Newton Hunt said they used what appeared to be a bastard
file at Bosendorfer when he was there, and Mapes may be using something
different now than they were when I last visited. This scores the wire, so it
will hold the windings more firmly. When the string is hit, and wiggles, the
windings are sort of thrown off, through centrifugal (sp?) force when it
changes directions as it whips around. The winding also can slide up and down
the string a bit. The scoring on the string, so they say, helps the winding
remain in place - and thereby produce a larger, fuller sound, since it is not
flopping around, not separating from the core wire, so much.

Randy Potter, R.P.T.