Help: Working for Scale

[Stephen Airy]

I think he meant the plain wire notes in the tenor section.  Usually when
wire sizes are given as #19, #17, #15, #14, #13 1/2, #13, etc, we're
talking about plain steel strings, not bass strings.  I understand,
though, why you thought he was talking about the bass, because he said
"the seventh note", and we usually count notes from the bottom of the
piano, so you probably thought the "seventh note" was low D#.


----- Original message -----
From: "Greg DesBrisay" <g.desbrisay@ieee.org>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: 27 Oct 2003 21:09:46 -0800
Subject: Re: Help: Working for Scale


Alan,

I'm new to the list and am glad to see that someone has actually seen
another Haines Brothers piano!  I have a Haines Brothers baby grand
built in 1931 (serial number 78173).

I don't know if the strings are the same on my piano from 1931 as for
your customer's piano from 1903, but aspects of my piano (like the
action) appear to be similar to those of old square grands from the
1800s, so perhaps the Haines Brothers stuck with the same design for
several years (!?).  

So on the chance that they might be of some help to you, I measured the
diameters of my bass strings.  I estimate the accuracy of these
measurements are +-.002 in.. Here are the diameters of the first 10 bass
strings (that way you can compare the diameters of strings 7-10 to see
if they are consistent with those on your customer's piano):

Key No.        Diameter (in.)       Notes
1               .264                 one wire, double-wound
2               .248                   "             "
3               .243                   "             "
4               .236                   "             "
5               .220                   "             "
6               .210                   "             "
7               .205                   "             "
8               .197                   "             "
9               .192                   "             "
10              .183                   "             "
11-30           ---                  two wires, single-wound


I hope this helps!

Regards,

Greg DesBrisay
Piano-guts neophite
San Carlos, CA, USA
g.desbrisay@ieee.org


On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 10:45, Alan wrote:
> Need a scale expert's opinion, please.
>  
> Restringing a 1903 Haines Bros. beauty. Customer decided to "help" by
> removing some of the plain-wire strings over the weekend. She also
> started to clean off the string size notations I had marked (very
> neatly) on the plate. Fortunately she realized they might be important
> and stopped this little game.
>  
> I can reconstruct the scale remaining marks and my notes for all but the
> lowest six notes. Starting at the 7th note, the wire size is 19. 
>  
> Can I assume the unknowns are probably 20's? Shall I just stick some
> 20-wire in there, see if I can pull it to pitch, and see if the
> resulting sting tension and sound  is reasonable?
>  
> Anyone out there have a Haines of the period?
>  
> Alan R. Barnard
> Salem, MO
>  
> 
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  Stephen Airy
  stephenairy@fastmail.fm