some days you get what you ask for

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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List,
 
Friday was certainly an interesting day on the job.  First piano  was an old 
Erhard upright, a nice old box made in 1919, pretty good shape.   It had a 
broken high treble string on it, which I'd been aware of, and I  replaced it no 
problem.
 
Next piano, Acrosonic, circa 1950s.  Pitch raise, twang, G#2 wound  bicord 
snapped. A perfect candidate for one of the universal bass strings a  lug 
around.  As usual, spinning off excess copper was the most time  consuming part of 
this job.  Again, no real problem.
 
I was thinking about how much I've improved in various repairs, thanks to  
many tips gleaned from this list and elsewhere in the PTG.  This type of  repair 
was once something I dreaded, now it's just something I do in the line of  
duty.  "But," I told myself, "don't get cocky.  How long's it been  since you've 
replaced a long wire in an understrung section of a piano?"   It had been 
awhile.
 
Which brings me to the next piano:  Steinway, a regular client, a  nemesis 
piano that always finds a way to lengthen the appointment beyond an  acceptable 
length.  A 1915 or so M re-whatevered badly a couple of decades  ago.  I was 
hoping for the best, but it was the usual 8-10 cent late-summer  pitch raise.  
No problem, at least until I got to A3.  Twang.   The A#3-A3 wire snapped.  
Went to the car, got stringing stuff including  tube to get string onto hitch 
pin.  In the failing light of the day, I got  the job done, but time would have 
been saved had I brought in my shop light so I  could see better to route the 
wire through the bridge pins.
 
The upside:  3 strings on the day, no bloody finger tips.
 
The weirdness:  Haven't had a string break in a few months.  Why  did they 
all gang up on me on one day???
 
Tip #1:  putting some tension on the wire makes it MUCH easier to get  the 
string placed properly around the bridge pins in the understrung  areas.  
 
Tip #2:  Lighting is a good thing when doing this sort of job!
 
Thanks for reading,
 
Dave Stahl

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