I rarely experiment with scaling when restringing a piano. There have been times, though, when I measure the scale of an instrument and find it to be so bizarre that it *couldn't* be the original, and the scale is unavailable. I am currently faced with just such a situation. The few references I have read on scaling generally give the formulas, and talk about a desired tension range of, say, 160-180 pounds. And this works ok for the most part. But I have learned that trying to stick to this tension in the tenor section results in using very heavy wire, which, quite frankly, sounds like crap. I checked a Steinway M in the shop last week, and calculated the tension on the lowest wire to be in the area of 120-125 pounds, obviously out of the "desired range". None of my books refer to this lowering of tension in this section (and Steve Fairchild's charts, in this month's Journal, don't either). How can I best determine the wire guage in this section of the piano? Are there some "rules of thumb"? Or is there a good book available that can help me with this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. -- Tom Rush tarush@chatt.mindspring.com
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