Wound Wire breakage in churchs

[harvey]

"... and the music goes round and round..." [Red Nichols, I think]

You can do the let-off adjustment if you wanna, Phil. They'll just play
even harder, using elbows and feet if necessary, until the piano volume is
amplified to a level commensurate with other competing instruments, or to
the "level of inspiration" achieved by the player at a given moment.

Other than that:
- replace both bi-chords, as applicable, when the broken one is replaced.
Otherwise the return calls will be sooner than they are now;
- prepare the church to budget for new bass strings (from anyone other than
Samick);
- check for string-cut hammers and correct (consider leaving resulting
longer strike distance);
- (on verticals, tighten butt plates at the same time).

There are no good answers. However, if you explain -reality- to the client,
without being judgmental or condescending, you'll have a good client for a
long time -- until they replace the piano with one (too small) from another
manufacturer and begin the process all over again. The new piano (or new
bass strings) will provide anywhere from 6 months to 2 years of
trouble-free use.

Aside. I'd almost bet you've not met the piano player. It doesn't matter.
As I've said many times before, this phenomenon is often not how hard or
how frequently the piano is played, rather the style of playing. This
includes 1/8 "chords", i.e., rolling octaves; punching keys for emphasis,
"stopped" notes (kinda like staccato but not), and other aberrations from
that of 'normal' piano playing. The hammer attacks the string, then, before
the string oscillations have a chance to resolve (bad word choice), the
same string is attacked again, and given enough repetitions of this, will
typically shear the wire off at the agraffe.

Some playing styles can cause this with new (or shaped) hammers and even
new bass strings. One recollection (although not a fond one) is that of a
professor who could shear a NEW bass string on demand. When I argued that
this was impossible (the string was new and not fatigued), he proceeded to
prove me wrong.

At 02:24 PM 10/16/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Recently, I have been called to tune pianos in churchs where there was broken
>wound wire. I replaced the wound wire in one piano(Samick Grand), tuned
and was
>on my way. 2 weeks later I am getting a call from that same church that 
>there is
>another broken wire in the piano.
>
>I'm tempted to adjust let-off as to deny power to this obviously hard player.



Jim Harvey, RPT
Greenwood, SC
harvey@greenwood.net
________________________
 -- someone who's been in the field too long.