S&S "M" stringing scale

[Les Smith]

Hi, John!

As long as there are 6/4 restringers out there, and that will probably
be forever, it's always a good idea to question a previous rebuilders
scale. What's a 6/4 restringer you ask? Back in the "bad old days" I
worked for one for a while. "V" not only didn't know how to use a micro-
meter, he didn't even own one. The only scaling reference guide he had
was the first edition of John Travis' "A Guide To Restringing". As you
probably recall, that first edition only included a limited number of
scales. If a piano was listed in the book, "V' followed the given scale,
assuming that he had the wire in stock--if not, he improvised with what-
ever was on hand. If a piano wasn't listed in the book, and that meant
3/4 of the pianos that came through his shop, he scaled them all 6/4!!!
By that I mean that he would arbitrarily pick #21, #20, or #19 as his
starting point after the highest bass string and then string 6 unisons
of the whole wire sizes and 4 unisons of the half wire sizes, all the
way to the top of the piano! Thus all the scales of 3/4 of the pianos
that went through his shop were 6,4,6,4,6,4 etc! He revealed his "secret"
to me one day when I questioned why he wasn't miking the strings as he
removed them from the piano. As you might imagine, the rest of the work
done in his shop was on the same level as his restringing. I didn't work
in his shop. Instead I was his head tuners and "clean-up" man in the field,
who took care of problems and complaints with his "rebuilds" as they arose,
which, as you can imagine, was literally all the time. Although the pay
was good, I finally quit when the ethical conflicts became too difficult
to handle. "V' was no "fly-by-night" operator. He had been in business
for a number of years when I first went to work for him and as far as I
know is still in business, still cranking out pianos scaled 6,4,6,4 etc.
He had a good refinisher working for him, which just reinforces my belief
that the general, uninformed, piano-buying public will buy a good-looking
piano in poor mechanical condition much more readlly than they will buy
poor-looking piano in great mechanical condition. Appearance sells! "V"
knew his market. Which is why it's always a good idea to question the
scale on any piano that's been previously restrung by someone else.

On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, John W. McKone wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> Does anyone have the stringing scale for a Steinway "M" #153*** handy.
> Started tearing this one down today, and don't trust the previous
> "rebuilder's" scale.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> John McKone, RPT
> Minneapolis, MN
> http://www.skypoint.com/members/mckonejw
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