Stringing Scales

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings,

Les writes;

>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?<snip> 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!

 That is wild ! I never heard of scaling like that.
 I would add the following lint to the thread;

      Starting out,  I soon learned the towns top technician(old), had his
own ideas about scales for Steinways.  This was unfortunate, as he was the
technician at the S&S dealer.
      His scaling was centered around C,  and would begin with #13 at the top
for  6 notes, then switch to 14 for an octave, then an octave of 15, then 16
etc. !!   Without using any half sizes,  he proceeded down the scale trying
to keep each C in the middle of the octaves worth of wire size!    His
stringing technique was superb,  tight coils, perfect becket alignment,
straight and even coil height, etc.  Just an oddball scale.   The pianos
were, to my ear, untunable.
     Being fresh out of school, and knowing everything,  I went into this
man's shop at the dealer, where he had rebuilt Steinways for 35 years,  and
 told him, in front of the owners son, that his pianos were not tunable!
     It is hard to describe the look in his eye when I said that,  but it
reminded me of the farmer who finds that someone accidently opened the bull
chute, while he was digging in the corral. (chorale?) However, this old guy
knew where the gates were, and I had no idea there was even a fence.  Escape
by seniority, it was.

      Needless to say,  that was the low point of the afternoon's
conversation,  the remainder of which consisted of him saying "Get out of
this shop and don't come back,  schools just teach you how to make money,
 but nothing about pianos !"

      He is long gone,  and I have restrung many of these pianos, (his pins
were always trustworthy, and several pianos have made it to #5 pins and tune
beautifully.)  I have seen the difference that restoring the original scale
makes, as a stand-alone change, and it is dramatic.

      It seems that the original factory scales used on the modern Steinway
grands are still a requirement for the pianos to sound as designed.  I
haven't heard an alteration yet, that I liked.

$.02  and my regards,

Ed Foote
Precision Piano Works
Nashville, Tn.