wire

[Carl W. Meyer]

Ed:   I think I worked on one of those several years ago.  I installed a
Pianocorder in it, but didn't restring it.  Imagine my chagrine when I
tried to pound the tuning pins deeper.
I was doing this for an antique dealer and in the end I put the piano on
its back and used several applications of pintite on the bottom of the
pinblock. It worked sorta.  I've always been sorry I didn't take a picture
of that piano on its back with the legs sticking up in the air on the floor
of my garage.  I could have had a picture of a dead piano and titled it
"TITS UP".  If you MUST restring it I'd use PSCALE and smooth out the
tension and the inharmonicity, but keep the overall tension as low as
practical and then tune to 440.
I suspect the hardness of the wire wouldn't affect the tension much but
could affect the tone.  Mapes made me a set of bass strings for a piano
with the winding going over the bridge, but made them just like any other
set.  Seemed okay under the circumstances.  You know  "That's the way we've
always done it".  

Carl Meyer
Santa Clara, Ca.
 

> [Original Message]
> From: <A440A@AOL.COM>
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Date: 6/28/00 4:07:47 PM
> Subject: wire
>
> Greetings, 
>     I have a piano in the shop that is too old for me to know for sure
what 
> I'm doing. 
>  Broadwood 7'5",  soundboard decal says "Semi-Grand"
> Serial # 43364 
>  
> Straight strung,  Screw-threaded tuning pins, 
> Nice little felt punchings at the bottom of the tuning pins
> Bass strings have the windings over the bridge, (cloth wrapped on the
singles)
> 85 note scale
> four iron bars are connecting the pinblock plate to the stringing plate, 
> (this is NOT a full cast plate)
> Individual hitch pins throughout!!!
> agraffes from A1 to A49, trichords from F#22 on up, 
>  bolted in capo bar from Bb 50 up. 
> speaking length A1 is 164 cm
> 
> Existing (original) wire diameters are
>  F# 22 ( first plain wire) size 21  (0.047")
> C4    is 17 1/2 ( 0.040)
> C6    is  16   (0.037
> A85 is   13  (0.031)  
> 
> Action has one adjustment for let-off, continuous brass flanges.  
> 
>  It is not a museum restoration,  the owners just want a playable
keyboard in 
> the house and this is going to be it.  The question is,  Does a piano of
this 
> vintage require some type of softer iron wire,  or can I just treat it
like a 
> modern piano.  And pitch?  I am thinking 435 at the max.  Any ideas 
> appreciated. 
> Regards, 
> Ed Foote RPT
> ( I suppose everybody on the list knows they are more than welcome to
come 
> see our temperament show at the convention!!)  



--- Carl W. Meyer
--- cmpiano@earthlink.net
--- EarthLink: It's your Internet.