hitch pin glitch

[Joe And Penny Goss]

Hi Tom,
I can't see how anything at the hitch would cause the string to tear at the capo bar.
Measure the string length.
Joe Goss RPT
Mother Goose Tools
imatunr at srvinet.com
www.mothergoosetools.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tom Sivak 
  To: pianotech 
  Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 7:21 AM
  Subject: hitch pin glitch


  List
   
  I was tuning a 4 year old S&S Model S yesterday.  The piano was slightly low in pitch, but not significantly, having been tuned only 6 months ago.  By me.  

  The string at C8 broke at the capo bar.  I was shocked.  I mean, this is a practically new piano and it wasn't very flat.  

   I went to the car and got my string kit and replaced the string, spanning the B7/C8 unison.  I started pulling the string up to pitch, going back and forth between B and C, and finally got B7 in tune and went to C8, pulling it up.  

  I found B7 had slipped, alot, and pulled it back up, and found C8 had slipped, alot, and pulled it up and back and forth and back and forth.

  Something was wrong.  I continued to try to get the new string up to pitch.

  Finally, the new string broke at the same place, right under the capo bar.  It was then that I noticed the plate hitch pin.  It was bent at a forward angle, leaning towards the keys, unlike all the other hitch pins (with a few notable exceptions, actually), which were all leaning back away from the keys at about the 2 o'clock angle.  This hitch pin was at an 11 o'clock angle.  I decided not to try to install another string with the hitch pin looking like this.

  I called the local Steinway dealer to initiate a warranty repair on this.  (I've never replaced a hitch pin, wouldn't know where to start)

  My question is this: both strings broke.  It seems that the faulty hitch pin must have had some play in this, but I can't see how, really.  How could the hitch pin's angle cause the strings to break?

  If I assume the hitch pin was in its proper position when I started to tune the unisons (which I don't know, since I didn't look at it until after the second string broke) and then bent forward as additional tension was added by me pulling them up to pitch, I can understand why the strings kept falling flat, since the length of the string, from tuning pin to hitch pin was getting smaller.  But why didn't the string hold when pulled up to its proper tension?  The string didn't slip off the hitch pin, it broke at the capo when it almost got up to pitch.  

  Could it be that the string started to move slightly upward on the hitch pin, by virtue of the hitch pin's angle allowing it to do so?  If that were true, then the string wouldn't render properly at the bridge, because of the upward pressure against the angle of the bridge pin?  I'm really trying to imagine how the hitch pin might have had a play in this.

  I guess it's possible that the strings breaking were unrelated to the hitch pin situation, but then why would the new string break?  Seems that it had to have something to do with it.

  Any ideas?

  I don't think I will be involved in the replacement of this hitch pin, but I am curious as to how it is done, and if it can be done in the customer's home.  After finding the problem on B7/C8, I looked at all the other hitch pins and found two others that are standing more vertically than all their compatriots, as if they were on their way to moving completely forward like the problem hitch pin did.  I could see the metal on the plate looked 'bunched up' on the front side as if the forward movement of the hitch pin caused the plate metal to deform, slightly, upward, on each of the hitch pins that were not at the same angle as the others.

  Any comments?

  Thanks,
  Tom Sivak
  Chicago

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