wire curve

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

HI Del:

When I worked for Baldwin, we began getting our wire cut to length and it
was straight. In the Juarez plant I designed a box which had many conduit
tubes in it arranged according to the string numbers starting from the top
to the bottom of the plain wire scale. I had to figure the length of the 
wire from the tuning pin to the hitch pin and back again and then add the
length for the coils on each tuning pin. I placed a 1 inch plug at the 
bottom end of each tube so that the bundle of precut wire would stick out
of the tube 1 inch for easy grasping when it was time to be coiled on a
tuning pin. 

One of the ways we designed to keep the stringer from grabbing the wrong
wire, was to have them precoil one string from each tube ahead of time.
then as they were stringing, they would just grab the next wire which had
a tuning pin dangling at the end of the tube. The box these tubes were 
mounted in was elevated at a small angle so that the wire would stay in the
tube in a orderly manner.

We found that we could buy wire cheaper in straight precut lengths because
they did not have to wind it into coils and then package it. They had a
chopper located just beyond the sizing die. when the end of the wire hit
a stop, this triggered the chopper to cut the wire to that precise length.
Then the wire being drawn through the die would continue on until it hit
the stop again and was chopped. This method leaves the wire straight because
coming out of the die, it is never coiled.

Del, did you ever find any difference between the coiled wire and the 
straight wire as far as tone was concerned? I had always assumed that there
was no difference in sound because in the speaking length of a wire, the
tendency to coil was minuscule compared to the tension on the wire.

Jim Coleman, Sr.



On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> 
> 
> Richard Moody wrote:
> 
> > Del,
> >         Where did you get the straight wire? Is "how" a better word?
> >
> > Ric
> >
> 
> ----------------------
> 
> The company I worked for at the time had a good working relationship with the
> string maker.  I compared "straight" wire, coiled wire & "straightened" wire.
> 
> Del
> 
>