Replacing plain wire

[A440A@aol.com]

Stephen writes: 
<<Modern pianos are scaled (for the most part) at well below the breaking
strenth (many semitones), and you have to have some stragne conditions
before you get even into the plastic zone. >>

Greetings, 
    The modern piano is usually scaled so that the wire will break when 
raised a minor 3rd. from its intended pitch.  Roughly calculating,(in my 
head, where there is a lot of misc. junk), the elastic limit is usually 
reached when the wire is raised about 200 cents.  
   Age doesn't seem to affect plain wire.  As Wim noted early on here, 
putting a new piece of wire in an old piano doesn't cause much difference in 
the tone,(there are exceptions, of course).  The best sounding piano I have 
has 80 year old wire in it, and I am only going to restring it (when it comes 
in off of a long term lease) because the block is starting to scare me.  
Regards, 
Ed Foote RPT