Leveling Coils & Pinching Becket

A440A@aol.com A440A@aol.com
Tue, 4 Nov 2003 11:56:32 EST


Gordon writes: 
<<  I've not tried to level coils 20 years after the 
piano was restrung.  How is it done?.  >>

Greetings, 
  It  depends on the problem.   Loose beckets are ugly, irregular coils, too. 
If you will be needing to lift the coils to get them tight, then the impact 
hammer type, with small coil socket on the end, is the way to go.  If you are 
going to try to lever them up with the one piece coil lifter, you may find 
quite a few that are not only hard to reach, but also, hard to lift without really 
prying them up and risking plate chips,etc.  
   After this, tap the top with a setting tool, (a coil cutter), to level 
them.  
  I like to squeeze beckets in with a small pair of vise-grips.  If you want 
to dedicate them, use a small grinder to grind concave faces on the jaws, it 
helps speed up the job.  I like to squeeze them in, then give a slight twist in 
the direction of the coil to help relieve slack around the pin.  Even on a 
year-old stringing job, this will drop the pitch anywhere from 3 to 10 cents!  
   I would first ask myself, "Why am I doing this"?  String spacing is a 
functional thing, leveling coils on a twenty year old rebuild,though?  Idunno. 
Regards,
 

Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html
 <A HREF="http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/399/six_degrees_of_tonality.html">
MP3.com: Six Degrees of Tonality</A>

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC