Breaking strings - Was: tough work

[Clyde Hollinger]

Friends,

I ran into a new situation a couple days ago, when I let down the tension of
all the bass strings of a 1972 Baldwin finger-rail Acrosonic spinet to reglue
the bridge cap to the bridge.  Three of the double-wound bass strings broke off
at the becket.  Two of them I could repair, although it is difficult to work
with the very fat core wire of those lowest strings!

The third string broke a second time, this time where the coil started.  Since
all of this string trouble was totally unexpected, I was way over my estimate
by now and very weary, too, so I just brought this one string home until I
decide whether I should try splicing it or just buy a new replacement.

Question for those who read this far:  Is #20 wire heavy enough to hold the
tension for the A#0 string for this piano?  I don't have any wire as thick as
this core wire, and I thought maybe the core is so thick, not because it has to
be for strength, but because it has to be like that for acoustic reasons.  Can
you help me on this?

I have also found situations that match Susan's, most recently in a 1980
Whitner spinet.  In 1998 I did a 100c pitchraise and tune, no problem.  Then in
1999 the C6 string tore, which I repaired, and in 2000 the B5-C6 string tore,
which I also repaired.  A year later the same string tore again!  So I replaced
with new wire all three strings for B5 and C6.  There was no additional problem
with the most recent tuning, although I'm always wary when tuning that area,
since there may be other strings of the same size.

BTW, since I guarantee my work for some reasonable length of time, I gave
credit on the two first string repairs toward the cost of replacing the
strings.

Regards,
Clyde

Susan Kline wrote:

> At 08:48 PM 3/20/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >tuned a couple of notes,and bamm,a broken string.A few more notes,another
> >broken string,and another.I let the pitch down first,even used a lubricate
> >around the hitch pins,and on the coils.I have never felt a string respond
> >in this manner,as,I would let the pitch down,and it would go down
> >smooth.But as soon as I tried to bring it back up,it wouldn't budge,and if
> >it did,bamm.Even a half step low,it still would not come back
> >smoothly,also this was in the low bass only.Has anyone ever run across
> >anything like this.
>
> I had only one this bad -- a previous tuner had broken three bass strings
> (and TOOK THEM AWAY but didn't replace them!!!
> grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) and about five treble strings. It was an
> Acrosonic, and I'd never seen such breakage on one. Investigating, I found
> that it had been made in 1943. All the broken treble strings were the same
> size of wire. I brought it to pitch, and replaced ALL the treble wire of
> the breaking size, measured for and replaced the missing bass strings,
> broke two more, replaced them, tuned, retuned.
>
> What a pain. My feeling was that the wire during the war was bad -- in the
> treble, they had been able to use some old good stock, but had had to buy
> that one size new. All the core wire in the bass seems to have been bad.
>
> Susan Kline
>
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