wire curve

[David ilvedson]

Jim,

That is so interesting!  Long ago a fellow here in the Bay Area, 
Jack Roll (he made some great tools), began prestretching 
piano wire with some sort of a gadget that put X amount of 
weight to some lengths of wire and after some time they would 
be straight and much more stable when repairing a broken 
string.  I believe Sheldon Smith has all the particulars her in 
the Bay Area.  This list is so interesting some times!

David Ilvedson

Date sent:      	Thu, 04 Mar 1999 13:29:45 -0700 (MST)
From:           	"Jim Coleman, Sr." <pianotoo@imap2.asu.edu>
Subject:        	Re: wire curve
To:             	Delwin D Fandrich <pianobuilders@olynet.com>
Copies to:      	pianotech@ptg.org
Send reply to:  	pianotech@ptg.org

> 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
> > 
> > 
> 


David Ilvedson, RPT
Pacifica, CA
ilvey@jps.net