One more quick thought before beginning the holiday. Occasionally, I'm called upon to do a restringing job. When I do, there are two things I'm always careful about: 1.) Never leave a twist in any of the plain wire strings, and, 2.) I do my best to never pull the strings above their correct tension. 1.) Twisting plain (or wound) strings increases the amount of tension they'll take before breaking. Unfortunately, it also makes plain wire more likely to generate false beats. Is there any evidence that unwound strings were twisted as a matter of policy in order to decrease the incidence of string breakage in some of the piano factories? 2.) A string which has been over-tensioned is also more likely to generate false beats. Might some of the factories have over-tensioned their pianos in order to reduce the number of factory tunings and thereby cut costs? Just some theories I've been nursing for a long time..... I've often felt that so many inexpensive pianos had so much potential....that they could have been so much more..... if only some very simple, very easy procedures were applied during production. What good are "the most advanced scaling" and "the best materials", if the wire is twisted, damaged by over-tensioning, or, even kinked? Happy Thanksgiving! -Joe
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