ZEBRA STRINGS

[Jim Coleman, Sr.]

Hi Tom:

About 20 to 40 years ago, the makers of economy pianos were using string
windings which were copper clad rather than solid copper. The strings
were cheaper, but they would tarnish irregularly. This could be the cause,
or perhaps some chemical happened to run down just a few strings.

Jim Coleman, Sr.

On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Tom Robinson wrote:

> Today I performed a pitch raise on a 20 year old Hallet & Davis
> console.  According to the owner, it had not been touched since it was
> delivered new.  Tuning pin torque was pretty uniform throughout.
> Several of the monochord strings were very noticeably dead sounding and
> displayed a uniform tarnish.  However, about half of them had no
> noticeable tarnish and sounded very good (i.e.  A0, A#0, and B0 looked
> like new strings except for being dusty, whereas C1 was very dead and
> tarnished).  There was no particular pattern to this problem.  In the
> bichord section, the strings looked fairly uniform and none was
> remarkably dead sounding.   I was assured by the owner that it had never
> had any strings replaced and he had bought the instrument new.  I
> detected no rust on the strings, v-bar, pressure bar, or any exposed
> steel surfaces.
> In my limited experience, I have not seen a situation like this.  I own
> a 50 year old piano with new looking and bright sounding original bass
> strings, and I've seen lots of 15 to 100 year olds with uniformly dead
> and tarnished wound strings (the norm for this area), but never
> this......
> Is this a case of "bad" strings (i.e. metallurgical inconsistency)?
> 
> Tom Robinson
> East Tennessee - Land of oppor-tune-ity (if you like 75 year old
> "upright grands")
> 
>